China’s PLA Reveals Outline And Nose Of H-20 Stealth Bomber In Hype Recruitment Video

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On January 5^th, China’s People Liberation Army (PLA) released a new hype recruitment video.

China officially started the biannual military recruitment work in 2021 recently. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the biannual recruitment mechanism, which was originally planned to start in 2020, will be implemented from the year 2021.

This will be the first time for the Chinese military to carry out recruitment work in spring since 1990.

Titled “Dream of Youth,” it presents a narrative that follows a single individual as they join China’s air force and become a fighter pilot.

At its end, the video takes the viewer into a computer-rendered futuristic-looking hangar containing the stealth bomber, which is first seen under a sheet.

This is similar to what China showed in a video that the state-run Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) released in 2018, which also aped a famous Northrop Grumman Superbowl ad that had teased the aircraft that became known as the B-21.

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In a reflection on the visor of a helmet, viewers see the sheet being pulled off, revealing the front end of the aircraft.

This is actually the first official rendering of any kind of the long-rumored H-20 stealth bomber.

And, as mentioned, it strongly resembles the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 Spirit and the future B-21 Raider, or at least the outline or the nose.

he Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation (XAC), the division of AVIC focused on the development of larger aircraft, including China’s H-6 family of derivatives of the Soviet Tu-16 Badger bomber and the Y-20 airlifter, is reportedly overseeing the H-20 program.

Work has reportedly been going on since at least the early 2000s and the basic design is reported to have been largely frozen by 2011.

There have also been reports that XAC may have slowed work on the H-20 to focus on finishing development and then ramping up production of the Y-20.

There is also a wind tunnel-mode photograph of the H-20.

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The Drive’s Tyler Rogoway commented the following on it:

“Copying the B-2 exactly to create the H-20 seems a bit odd, even for China, as well. Better low observable capabilities, higher altitude performance, and a simplified empennage design could be had by not including its saw-tooth trailing edge. This was added midway through the B-2’s development at great cost to allow the aircraft to penetrate at low altitudes. You can read all about this design change and how the original B-2 planform design will likely mirror that of the B-21 Raider in this past special feature of ours.”

The “special feature” he mentions focuses on the shape of the B-21 Raider which suggests it would be used at a very high altitude.

State-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China, a main contractor of Chinese warplanes, released a scene in a promotional video in May 2018, which also showed the front outline of a similar aircraft covered in a blanket, suggesting the flying wing design, but no further details were observed. This was the first time the general shape of the alleged H-20 was released to the public.

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