China’s J-20 'Mighty Dragon' Next Generation Fighter Marks Three Years in Service

The Chengdu J-20 ‘Mighty Dragon’ fifth generation air superiority fighter entered service in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force on March 10th 2017, marking a major milestone in the country's emergence as a world leader in military aviation. The J-20 was the third fifth generation combat jet to enter service - following on from the American F-22 Raptor and its lighter and cheaper counterpart the F-35 Lightning II - and was the first fighter of its generation to enter service anywhere outside the United States. No new fifth generation designs have entered service anywhere in the world since, although China is developing at least two new classes of stealth fighter including a medium weight design under the FC-31 program and a lightweight single engine platform intended primarily for export markets. 

The J-20 is a heavyweight twin engine design comparable in its role and weight range to the American F-22 Raptor. The fighter has integrated a number of new technologies since its entry into service, from distributed aperture systems for better situational awareness to new WS-10 engines to replace the older Russian AL-31FM2 used by early variants. The fighter has been deployed to the PLA’s elite ‘Ace Squadrons’ since entering service, and alongside the J-16 and J-10C ‘4+ generation’ fighters - lighter complementary platforms which lack high end stealth capabilities but boast many similar next generation technologies to the J-20 such as AESA radars and PL-15 air to air missiles. New technologies integrated onto the J-20's high performance airframe have provided it with world leading capabilities, and in terms of its air to air performance the fighter compares highly favourably with both the American F-35 and the F-22 Raptor.

The J-20 appears to still be at the beginning of its production run, and a number of more advanced variants and derivatives are currently under development. These include variants equipped with WS-15 next generation engines - which promise to be the most capable engines integrated onto a fighter with a thrust of 197 kN with afterburner - more than the current record holder the American F135 with 191kN. The WS-15 reached 180kN in testing as early as 2012, but is still not considered combat ready. The engines will provide the J-20 with a far better thrust/weight ratio than rival fifth generation designs such as the F-22 and Russian Su-57, and research is reportedly also underway to develop a variant with three dimensional thrust vectoring capabilities. New derivatives of the J-20 with twin seats, and designed for a strike role, are also expected to enter service in the near future - the latter which may resemble the American FB-22 design which was cancelled due to budgetary constraints. Ultimately the J-20 heralds China’s emergence as a leader in military aviation, and alongside sixth generation fighter programs currently under development the technologies developed for the program are also set to be integrated onto other fifth generation and ‘4+ generation’ designs which are set to enter service in the coming years.