Of course not. The Chinese stealth fighter, which goes by the name of Chengdu J-20 Black Eagle, has nothing to do with the latest stealth fighter of the US Airforce and Navy, the F-22 Raptor.
It also has nothing to do with the F-117A shot down over Serbia in March 1999, despite the fact that more and more people claim that the Eagle is in fact inspired by the tech used in that airplane. But let's hear the whole story.
Media reports across the globe, citing Croatian military personnel, say that soon after the low tech Serbian army shot down the impossible to shoot down Nighthawk, the Serbs have begun talking to the Russians to sell whatever they managed to recover from
The Chinese, on the other hand, were more proactive and they sent spies into Serbia to try and get their hands on the American technology.
Now, all of the above is nonsense, say the Chinese. The Eagle is nothing but a great product (a Chinese test pilot who flew it says it's far better than the F-177, by the way) coming from the great minds of Mother China herself.
"Unlike previous fighters such as the J-7 and J-8, which drew on the merits of aircraft from other countries, the J-20 is a masterpiece of China's technological innovation," admits and states at the same time Xu Yongling, the test pilot mentioned above.
And we believe him. Don't ask us why.
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