Thought you guys might like this. Courtesy of Wall Street Journal (front page news).
!(http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac160/klik8888/Models post 2010/scan0001.jpg)
Its not a plane yet. Its a development plane. Like the early model development planes for the F-22. They probably painted it for show and tell.
according to (admittedly biased) Chinese State Press, the pictures were taken after a full-speed taxi test, which usually takes place before the first flight test of fighter aircraft.
It may turn out to be nothing, just like the Mig 1.44 and SU-37.
Bring it on China!
We still have the Raptor!
Jesus, the Chinese J-20 makes its maiden flight today right on the date of Robert Gates talk with China President Hu…
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A19B20110111#post
Reuters) - China confirmed it held its first test-flight of a stealth fighter jet on Tuesday, a show of muscle during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates aimed at defusing military tensions between the two big powers.
Gates said Chinese President Hu Jintao told him the maiden test-flight of the J-20 fighter jet prototype, which could eventually help narrow the military gap with the United States, was not timed to coincide with his visit.
“I asked President Hu about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test,” Gates told reporters.
Asked whether he believed that, Gates said: “I take President Hu at his word that the test had nothing to do with my visit.”
A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hu and other civilian leaders at the meeting with Gates did not appear aware the J-20 test-flight had happened before the U.S. side pressed them about it.
“When Secretary Gates raised the question of the J-20 test in the meeting with President Hu, it was clear that none of the civilians in the room had been informed,” the official told reporters.
The flight of the J-20 may have been timed to coincide with Gates’s visit to signal to Chinese people, including military officers, that Beijing was not bowing in the face of U.S. pressure, said Jin Canrong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing who specialises in China-U.S. relations.
Ardently patriotic Chinese, including some outspoken military officers, have urged the government to press Washington harder over Chinese complaints about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and U.S. military activities in seas and skies near China.(Continue from link…)