BAD HARDWARE WEEK

Once the J-20 is deployed, in that scenario, US top guns would lose their high-performance stealth advantage and no longer rule the skies.

Not so fast, says Aviation Week. New, more powerful radars using active electronically scaled arrays can pick up fainter and fainter targets, and are fast catching up to stealth technology. "Anti-stealth will bring into question all stealth designs," it says, hinting that the US may already have airborne radars able to spot stealth aircraft.

BAD HARDWARE WEEK: Moreover, perfecting stealth technology takes time. The US started its F-22 programme in the 1980s. To an experienced eye, the stealthy look of the Chinese jet "is just sort of cobbled together," Teal group analyst Richard Aboulafia told The Wall Street Journal. He thinks China may be able to deploy the new aircraft in a decade, but by then the US should have better technology. The age of phase radars only begun.

An End to America’s Air Invincibility?
No, that sounds eerily familiar. We used to call it an arms race. However, J-20 canards have little in common with the term airplane radar invisibility.