{"id":188024,"date":"2010-12-27T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T01:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/12\/27\/its-the-fuzzy-aircraft-photo-home-game\/"},"modified":"2010-12-27T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T01:54:00","slug":"its-the-fuzzy-aircraft-photo-home-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/12\/27\/its-the-fuzzy-aircraft-photo-home-game\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s the Fuzzy Aircraft Photo Home Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 5px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 395px;\">Click for full size<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/img408.imageshack.us\/img408\/9017\/d9382d5460994a2bb174023.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/img408.imageshack.us\/img408\/9017\/d9382d5460994a2bb174023.jpg\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a><br \/>Note the Insignia<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img808.imageshack.us\/img808\/7628\/584d27d66e87482391d1744.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/img808.imageshack.us\/img808\/7628\/584d27d66e87482391d1744.jpg\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a><br \/>Note the lack of insignia<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img249.imageshack.us\/img249\/604\/j205poss9124628.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/img249.imageshack.us\/img249\/604\/j205poss9124628.jpg\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a><br \/>A \u00be rear view<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img151.imageshack.us\/img151\/123\/a37cd5b779a2476baa432c9.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img151.imageshack.us\/img151\/123\/a37cd5b779a2476baa432c9.jpg\" \/><\/a><br \/>A frac34; front view<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img824.imageshack.us\/img824\/1566\/800pxroundelofthepeople.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/img824.imageshack.us\/img824\/1566\/800pxroundelofthepeople.png\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a><br \/>PLAAF (Chinese) Insignia<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img252.imageshack.us\/img252\/1488\/630pxurssrussianaviatio.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/img252.imageshack.us\/img252\/1488\/630pxurssrussianaviatio.png\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a><br \/>Soviet Era Insignia<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img600.imageshack.us\/img600\/1236\/629pxrussianairforcerou.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/img600.imageshack.us\/img600\/1236\/629pxrussianairforcerou.png\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a><br \/>Current Russian Insignia<\/span><\/div>\n<p>So, the late Ted Stevens&#8217; &#8220;Series of Tubes&#8221; is abuzz with what purports to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aviationweek.com\/aw\/blogs\/defense\/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&amp;plckScript=blogScript&amp;plckElementId=blogDest&amp;plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&amp;plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3Acaf36660-d425-4fbc-a284-008017b2b444\">fuzzy photographs of a Chinese stealth aircraft<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think that these are raw photos, and that some photo-shopping has been done, most notably the oversize tail insignia, which is most assuredly NOT a PLAAF symbol, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flightglobal.com\/blogs\/the-dewline\/2010\/12\/j-20-photos-fake-alert-or-real.html\">Stephen Trimble observes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some other oddities, to my (<b>very<\/b>) untrained eye:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> The wing has anhedral, and the canard dihedral, which would be a no-no in stealth design, you would want the surfaces more or less parallel.<\/li>\n<li>The same goes for the drooping wing tips, which are absent on the front view but present in the rear view.<\/li>\n<li>Pictures 1 and 3 of the aircraft appear to be with the power and the hydraulics unpowered, but there is no gravity caused droop in what are supposed to be axisymmetric thrust vectoring nozzles.&nbsp; (They pretty much have to be with the small tail size).<\/li>\n<li>On the top picture, it appears that the observers in the rear are about 1\u00bd feet taller than the ones around the front of the aircraft.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While I think that it is clear that the Chinese are looking at developing some sort of stealthy fighter or attack aircraft, I really don&#8217;t think that it has gotten to the point where a 70 foot long demonstrator of some sort is flying.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s possible that the pictures are real, though there appears to be at least a bit of&nbsp; digital wizardry involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click for full size Note the Insignia Note the lack of insignia A \u00be rear view A frac34; front view PLAAF (Chinese) Insignia Soviet Era Insignia Current Russian Insignia So, the late Ted Stevens&#8217; &#8220;Series of Tubes&#8221; is abuzz with what purports to be fuzzy photographs of a Chinese stealth aircraft. I don&#8217;t think that &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,1170,1006,1124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-china","category-military","category-photographs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}