American Boeing Company has released renderings of the Navy's sixth-generation fighter jet, F/A-XX.

After this so-called future carrier-based fighter photo was exposed, more people noticed not its advanced design, but rather its almost identical shape to the Air Force's F-47: the same diamond-shaped fuselage, the same tailless layout, the same back-mounted air intake, and even the canopy and nose shape were almost completely copied.

This has led people to question whether the sixth-generation aircraft projects of the two U.S. military branches have started to copy each other's basic aerodynamic designs, as if using a single PowerPoint template to deal with both naval and air operations.

From the pioneering nature of the F-22 era to the compromise of the F-35 era, now the F/A-XX and F-47 have become "I copy myself." The so-called next-generation air superiority platform has not presented even the slightest new imagination.

This phenomenon clearly indicates that the United States is showing obvious technical exhaustion in terms of tactical innovation, aerodynamic exploration, and strategic planning for sixth-generation aircraft.

A country that claims to be the strongest in global aviation technology has submitted two answers that are almost overlapping for two sixth-generation aircraft. In short, it's just: out of ideas, unable to continue.

Boeing's F/A-XX rendering

What is more shocking than the similar appearance is that the core aerodynamic design of these two future American aircraft both introduce forward canards.

More than a decade ago, when China's J-20 first appeared, it adopted the same canard configuration, which was mocked and suppressed by the West.

At that time, the West insisted that real stealth fighters could never use canards. They said that canards had too large a reflective surface, destroyed the stealth angle, indicated immature flight control systems, were like a fourth-generation aircraft with a fifth-generation shell, or even that China couldn't even copy properly, believing that the J-20 would never achieve true stealth combat.

However, more than a decade later, the U.S. directly installed canards on its own "future aircraft," making it a new generation of maneuvering control logic.

From mocking others to directly copying homework, the U.S. military's attitude on this issue is no longer a technical choice, but a complete double standard.

In terms of design path, the U.S. sixth-generation aircraft are following the route map of the J-20, circling around and returning again.

From a technological perspective, they realized ten years later that the path once belittled by them was actually extremely correct.

F-47 rendering

In fact, canards do have their unique value.

Under high-altitude and high-speed conditions, canards provide critical pitch control force and additional lift, which have practical benefits for flight attitude, agility, and long-range cruise capability.

For China at that time, the stealth material was not yet mature, and the flight control system was still in the growth stage. Choosing canards was a pragmatic solution to achieve optimal comprehensive performance under technical limitations.

From the perspective of actual combat performance, the J-20 has already mastered the canard configuration perfectly: it has initial supersonic cruise capability, stealth performance meets the survival requirements at the detection distance of platforms such as early warning aircraft, refueling aircraft, and has achieved mass deployment and routine patrols in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

This shows that China not only chose the right technical path, but also turned the canard, which was once mocked by the West, into a leading technical path with limited conditions.

The U.S. F-47 and F/A-XX now reintroducing canards is an indirect admission that there's nothing wrong with it.

China's sixth-generation aircraft

However, when the U.S. military began copying the J-20, China had already put down its pen and started the next phase of independent exploration.

From the currently public information, whether it's the sixth-generation aircraft prototype from Shenyang Group or the flying wing-type scheme from Chengdu, China's new generation of sixth-generation aircraft have not continued to use canard structures.

Instead, they have adopted more extreme integrated aerodynamic bodies, cleaner tailless layouts, and more radical flying wing shapes.

This change is not a denial of the past, but a transcendence of self.

The J-20 broke the technical monopoly of the F-22-style stealth template with canards, proving that asymmetric design can still achieve the integration of stealth and maneuverability.

Now, China is bold enough to remove canards because the flight control, aerodynamics, and stealth modeling have reached a level capable of supporting the new configuration.

In other words: we were ahead because we dared to use, and now we have evolved because we don't need to use anymore.

While the U.S. is still exploring the path China walked ten years ago, China has already taken full-bandwidth stealth, unmanned companion aircraft collaboration, dual-seat intelligent control, and other technologies to a brand-new air combat ecosystem.

And the U.S. will ultimately only be able to follow in China's footsteps.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7544960980796342838/

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