Sun Cong, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of China’s J-15 carrier-based fighter jet, will give a speech on fighter jet development at the Aviation and Aerospace Medicine Forum in January 2025. Photo: China Central Television screenshot
China’s top fighter jet designer said in a recent forum that his dream is to create an aircraft that looks like a mobile phone, a statement that would mark a paradigm shift in what people knew before. analysts said on Saturday.
Sun Cong, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of China’s J-15 carrier-based fighter jet, spoke about his views on fighter jet development at China Central Television’s Aviation and Aerospace Medicine Forum (CCTV) reported on Saturday.
“Our development cycles are currently too long, creating new challenges for aircraft research and development: Can we create an aircraft that looks like a mobile phone? This is our dream for the future.” Sun said.
New cell phones are developed every year, by comparison, new fighter jets typically take years to decades to develop. Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of the Beijing-based magazine Aerospace Knowledge, told the Global Times on Saturday that Sun’s comments were very visionary and set out the goals that China should strive to achieve. He said he was there.
Wang said there are very bright prospects in “making aircraft like mobile phones”, but many challenges need to be overcome. Aircraft (design) are complex systems made up of various complex systems such as weapons, radars, and displays. Supporting upgrades in all of these dimensions requires strong collective national capabilities.
This means new aircraft need highly standardized interfaces so new upgrades can plug and play. According to Wang, an open structure with forward and backward compatibility is needed. “This shows that the entire system can be iterated quickly and flexibly,” he said.
If this happens, Wang said, it would be a paradigm shift in what we knew before.
Meanwhile, some of these concepts have already been applied to the design of China’s J-20 stealth fighter. J-20 pilot Dong Jun said in a CCTV report in early January that although the J-20 looks unchanged from the outside, some of its core functions are being upgraded and improved on a daily basis. spoke.
