China's J-20 stealth fighter: "design is 25 years old"

This is not really "tech" news but is actually of great interest to me.  It all started at around the time when the US decided to cut funding the F-22 Raptor and halt production.  From a budget standpoint doing this seems like a good idea however doing so shows that the US is no longer interested in enforcing their world power status and would rather wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

Well, catching up they shall do.  The first on the list is a primary shareholder in the US economy, China.  While they are several years away from production the fact they are trying tells us something big is on the horizon.

For the most part, China's combat aircraft programme has lagged behind its competitors in the west and Russia.

China's fourth-generation combat jet, the J-10, appeared in 2006 – but experts say it compares with western aircraft that went into production two decades ago. Beijing has also struggled to develop the Shenyang J-15 carrier-borne jet, reverse-engineered from the Russian-made Sukhoi 33.

The thing I really like about this posting is how Russia is now reluctant to send supplies to China in fear that they will start cloning their parts and sell them at a reduced rate. 

Related Web URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/chi...