PLA Navy to build anime-inspired aircraft?
According to Georgio Zagkas (@GZakas) on twitter, an aircraft concept of China’s People Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN) is revealed at Zhuhai 2021 / Airshow China 2021.
In the tweet, it explains that the aircraft is meant to replace the Shenyang J-15, a reverse-engineered Su-33.
However, for fans of Japanese anime/manga/games, especially those interested in robotic-aircraft themed like Macross or Ace Combat, the aircraft design looks rather familiar….
The reverse sweep wing design resemble some famous anime aircrafts like….
The VF-19 Excalibur from Macross
The VF-31J Siegfried from Macross
The Erusean Air and Space Administration’s X-02 Wyvern from Ace Combat series
Or could it be the FFR-41 MR Mave from Yukikaze
The search for the word “Kalavinka” happened to also reveal aircraft design that also looks a little similar to the PLAN’s one.
Bird of Dawn Kalavinka is a figure produced by Big Fire Bird Toys, which can transform from “fighter jet mode” to “robot mode”.
This “toy” looks bulky, because it can turn into a robot, like transformer.
According to Youtube channel, Toy Base, this is actually a toy based on the Chinese J-20 fighter. It doesnt appear to be from any anime, manga or games from what we can tell.
Which then makes us suspect…. are we reading a troll tweet?
So we search the twitterverse again for confirmation… and then this….
Then comes another 3D image of this aircraft.
K.L
@kinglinzhuhui
【酷】 China’s next-generation carrier-based aircraft at the Zhuhai Air Show: Maximum flight speed of Mach 4, maximum cruising speed of Mach 3, maximum engine thrust of 120kN, afterburner thrust of 180kN, range of 3,500 kilometers, and combat radius of 2,000 kilometers.
Unfortunately this seemed to be all we can find.
Something this unique and “groundbreaking” should have attracted more attention than the J20 “unveiling” that is the center piece of the air show. Thus this give us sufficient doubt to view this as some form of disinformation or trolling.
Anyway, should be interesting to see if there is more information on this, or there would be someone finding the source of the original images to debunk the entire story altogether.
Its still an amazingly fun journey to look at how creative fantasy aircraft designs are and how cool they look.