Bootleg Jet

[Pakman3000]

They copy computers, cellphones, cameras, video players, watches, bags, and everything man-made—but did you know that the Chinese also copy entire combat airplanes? It's simple: They buy one and measure every part and system to clone it.

It's brutal reverse engineering but it works. In the past, they used to buy planes and designs from the Soviets. But now they go straight for the pirate copy, which has the Russians from Sukhoi fuming. The reason: They sell them at a lower price to any country that can't afford the real McCoy. Their quality is bad compared to the original, but good enough to fly and good enough that the countries—usually military dictatorships who just want to have a few flashy fighters—don't care.

This is the latest example: The Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark. They claim they created it all by themselves, but this carrier-based combat plane was copied and modified after reverse-engineering a Sukhoi Su-33 built to the Ukraine.

And here I was, thinking that Louis Vuitton had a problem

[youtube:20g6ipkn]trYUWQvKees[/youtube:20g6ipkn]
http://gizmodo.com/5590796/this-new-shi ... heapo-copy

[River_Rat_459]

Wow. Leave it to the Chinese to make an inferior copy of an inferior product.

[Pakman3000]

Wow. Leave it to the Chinese to make an inferior copy of an inferior product.

Sukhoi's and MiGs are very capable planes. Weren't these the first to introduce thrust vectoring? Even so, if they can make the Stealth movie type plane like i posted way back when, then look out.

[River_Rat_459]

But how do these planes stack up to American war planes?

[Pakman3000]

But how do these planes stack up to American war planes?

I don't think we can say. The F-22 is great on paper. The F-35 JSF is also getting pricier as time goes on but we don't even have more than 1 squadron of each of these planes I believe.The only battle tested planes we have are 1970 designs but they've got upgrades in avionics etc to keep up.

[River_Rat_459]

I gotchya. Thanks.

[saviger]

Wow. Leave it to the Chinese to make an inferior copy of an inferior product.

Sukhoi's and MiGs are very capable planes. Weren't these the first to introduce thrust vectoring?

the carrier based SU-33 shown in the pic does not, but the Ruskies modiefied several SU-37s with thrust vectoring with great results. I cant find the video on youtube but I remember seeing it on TV; The test pilot was actually able to fly completely backwards for a few seconds then fling the nose back around for forward flight.