Chinese Media Shows First Sixth Generation Fighter Aerial Refuelling Operation: New Very Long Range Combat Jet Pairs with YY-20 Tanker

A promotional film released to mark the tenth anniversary of the service entry of China’s first heavy lift aircraft, the Y-20, has shown the aircraft operating in a wide range of roles, including the YY-20 tanker variant providing aerial refuelling support for combat operations. The footage concluded with an officer in the cockpit of a YY-20 asking his superior which aircraft they could be refuelling next. ”First 'Sixth Master,’ then 'Little Six’,” the more senior officer replied, using the informal terms for the H-6 strategic bomber, and an unnamed sixth generation fighter type under development by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation. The final shot then clearly showed the sixth generation fighter in flight pulling up alongside the YY-20. The footage has been assessed by analysts to represent the first appearance of a sixth generation fighter in an official media production of any country, with images of sixth generation fighters having previously been taken from the ground and released informally on social media. 

China is the only country that has unveiled sixth generation fighters at flight prototype stages, with two separate aircraft developed by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation and the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation both having been shown in flight testing on social media for the first time on December 26, 2024. Both programs appear to have since made significant progress in testing. The latter and heavier of the two designs, which appeared in the recent footage with the YY-20, has seen four separate incrementally more refined prototypes enter flight testing, indicating a rapid rate progress being made by the program. The third and fourth prototypes were respectively first seen on December 25, 2025, and a month later in late January. The contrasting records of China and the United States for rates of fighter development indicates that China will bring its fighters into service close to a decade prior, with the heavier sixth generation fighter expected to join the Air Force in the early 2030s, while its U.S. rival the F-47 becomes operational only in the early 2040s. 

The Chengdu Aircraft Corporation’s sixth generation fighter is a very heavy ultra long range design which is expected to have a combat radius of close to 4,000 kilometres and an outstandingly large radar and weapons carrying capacity. To place this in perspective, the combat radius of China's primary air superiority fighter the fifth generation J-20 is estimated to be a little over 2,000 kilometres, while that of the most capable Western fighter type the F-35 is approximately 1,000 kilometres. Until the early 2020s China had negligible aerial refuelling capabilities, relying on four ex-Soviet Il-78 tankers and a number of much lighter H-6 bombers converted for refuelling roles. The increase in available aerial refuelling support as a result of the YY-20 program is highly complementary to the service entry of much longer range fighter types, most outstandingly Chengdu’s new sixth generation aircraft, and is expected to continue to significantly expand the Air Force’s ability to conduct combat operations further east and south into the Pacific. This has significant implications for the balance of power in the region.