T-Bone

Many of these high resolution images are protected by copyrights :(

I have the Manchuria terrain still, but I'm looking to make something easier like Taiwan and Diaoyutai islands first.

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Looks like the engine is shiny because it's the WS10A?

SKF, was the 2nd picture down taken from the J-10 chase plane?

I would say test flying a prototype under any circumstances is dangerous. Nothing is more humiliating than a crash as we saw with the YF-22 in 1992. I'm sure with China's obsession with saving face they want to get this done right. I also wouldn't doubt that the plane has flown before and that this test flight will be a somewhat staged airshow.

Interesting place to set up a test flight base, with all the clouds and haze I am sure it is easy to conceal something like the J-20 from spy satellites. Of course a test flight would be more convenient in a desert area with little to no cloud cover like Edwards AFB.

Did they successfully complete the test flight yet?

Looks excellent. Do you know if there is high resolution data (10m) available for other world regions?

No... it was some RGB values coded for different times of day. Shaders weren't in games yet back in 1998 LOL Which skyfix did you use? I had the platinum and v1-3, and Gold... yep lets just say I had too much spare time when I was younger ;) I am guessing things are a bit more complicated these days.

I created a "skyfix" for Falcon 4.0 many moons ago. I'm going to see if I can take a stab at this ;)

It is quite hazy there. Is that what winter in Sichuan is like? Very foggy and humid? The weather is definitely doing a good job at concealing finer details on the aircraft.

Hey Batou, have you found a way to make the terrain colors blend in better at low altitudes? I think ED is having a hard time with Nevada because of this. Honestly I think they should have left in advanced haze from LOMAC 1.0.

Sorry I have to disagree. China was very warlike during the end of the Han Dynasty and Three kingdoms era, and was considered to be more militarily powerful than the Roman Empire (200 AD). Qin Dynasty as well, with the well known emperor who unified China with his million man army... and Ming Dynasty for driving the Japanese Samurai out of Manchuria and Korea. If anything, I think China is RETURNING to being a more militaristic country after being peaceful and learning the hard way from European imperialism and the Japanese in WWII. It is unfair to say that other civilizations are more blood thirsty. Every advanced civilization that has existed has been blood thirsty at some point.

Yep, definitely looks like an interdiction fighter of some sort. I would not be surprised if within a few years a smaller more agile air superiority fighter was developed.

BTW I'm not endorsing his viewpoints, as it seems like this guy wants the US to sell Australia the F-22...

Australia Air Power on J-20 , Dr Carlo Kopp Over the last few days imagery of what is claimed to be China's new stealth fighter has appeared on a range of Chinese Internet sites. There have been no official disclosures as yet, so many of the claims appearing in the media may only be speculation presented as fact. The aircraft may be a technology demonstrator or a prototype for a mass production fighter aircraft. The latter is however much more likely, given that the PLA Chief of Air Staff claimed an IOC later in the decade. What the imagery shows is a large fighter, approaching the size of an F-111, with a canard delta configuration and pair of outward canted all moving vertical tails. This configuration will provide good sustained supersonic cruise performance with a suitable engine type, and good manoeuvre performance in transonic and supersonic regimes. Of most interest is the stealth shaping, which is considerably better than that seen in the Russian T-50 PAK-FA prototypes and in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Chinese design appears to be largely built around the stealth shaping design rules employed in the F-22A Raptor. The chined nose section and canopy are close in appearance to the F-22. The trapezoidal inlets are closest to the F-22, but employ an F-35 style boundary layer control design. The wing fuselage join angle, critical for side aspect stealth, is very similar to the F-22 and superior to the Russian T-50 PAK-FA prototypes and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The flat lower fuselage is optimal for all aspect wideband stealth. Planform alignment is impossible to assess until in flight imagery becomes available. The aft fuselage, tailboom, strakes and nozzles are not compatible with high stealth performance, but may only be stop gap measures to expedite flight testing of a prototype. The airframe configuration and aft fuselage would be compatible with an F-22 style 2D TVC nozzle design, or a non-TVC rectangular nozzle designed for controlled infrared emission and radio-frequency stealth. The PLA have not disclosed the engine type. There are claims that the Russians supplied supercruise capable 117S series engines - these would not be sufficient to extract the full performance potential of this advanced airframe. The airframe configuration is compatible with ventral and side opening internal weapon bays, and large enough to match or exceed the internal weapons payload of the F-22A Raptor. Internal fuel fraction may also be high, given the fuselage configuration and large internal volume of the big delta wing. Other unknowns are the intended sensor suite. China has yet to demonstrate an AESA radar, or an advanced indigenous emitter locating system. However, these could become available by the time this airframe enters production. The size of the airframe, and its evident focus on supersonic persistence, suggests at a minimum an intention to provide a long range interceptor for air control in the Second Island Chain geography. This capability by default would provide the ability to penetrate an opposing IADS to destroy assets like AWACS, other ISR systems, and tankers. Suffice to say, with suitable internal weapons, the design could be employed as a penetrating strike aircraft, in the combat radius class of the F-111 or Su-34 Fullback. The notion that an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or F/A-18E/F Super Hornet will be capable of competing against this Chengdu design in air combat, let along penetrate airspace defended by this fighter, is simply absurd. APA will produce a detailed analysis at a future date, once more technical material becomes available.

Yeah the picture is outdated, and was out before these photos. I'd say it looks cooler than the PAK-FA but not as refined as the F-22.

A size comparison chart.

Looking great! Can't wait to fly in it. How many objects are in the map now? Is the FPS good?

BUMP! LB9, What is the latest news on the Nev. Theater? Will it be available in Beta 4/5/6, etc? Has ED been able to find a solution for the color clashing issues and texture blending? Will the new terrain tools be released soon? Thanks, T-Bone

Korea actually is another consideration which would work.

Maybe Taiwan. Smaller land mass.

Be careful with satellite images if you plan on releasing, especially copyrighted ones (Google Earth) and very high resolution aerial shots.

This is a picture of a 2048x2048 tile without noise. Note this is even higher resolution than Nevada, but still not detailed enough to look convincing down low without proper blending/etc.