China Tests its Newest and Most Dangerous Fighters: J-20 and J-16 Further Integrated into the Air Force

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has carried out large scale live fire exercises which tested the capabilities of its two newest and most advanced fighters the Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-16. Joining the fleet in 2014 and 2017 respectively, both have played a key role in bringing Chinese aerial warfare capabilities into a new generation. The J-20 is the first fifth generation fighter to enter service outside the United States, and is analogous in its role to the U.S. Air Force's F-22 Raptor with both being heavyweights specialised in air to air combat. Unlike the F-22 however, which was designed conflict against the Warsaw Pact in Europe in mind during the Cold War, the J-20 has been designed specifically for combat in the Western Pacific. The fighter's maintenance requirements and operational costs are also reportedly significantly lower than those of the F-22, while its production run is expected to be at least twice as long.

Chen Liu, a J-20 pilot and grandson of air marshal Liu Yuti, a MiG-15 pilot who shot down eight American aircraft during the Korean War, compared the task of J-20 pilots over the past several months to “white hat” hackers and video game testers. They were tasked with identifying mechanical and software glitches for fixing or debugged before the next mission, thus breaking the advanced new aircraft into service. Pilots were also tasked with compiling manuals for other PLA units, with hundreds of new personnel being trained to operate the J-20 as production expanded. This came amid reports of significant investment in infrastructure for a sizeable J-20 fleet including large hangars built at future sites of deployments. Only a single PLA Air Force brigade currently deploys the J-20, although the fleet is expected to expand significantly in the near future.

The coordinated exercises under which fighters simultaneously deployed from multiple airbases across the country showed the extent to which both the J-20 and J-16 were integrated into the service, fully operational and ready for combat. While the J-16 is a fourth generation fighter derived from the Soviet Su-27, its avionics and armaments are comparable in sophistication to those of the J-20 including integration of an AESA radar and the same PL-15 and PL-10 air to air missiles. The two fighters are set to be joined by more new aircraft, most notably a '4++ generation' variant of the J-10 with equally sophisticated avionics and weaponry, and another fifth generation fighter lighter than the J-20 which is currently being developed under the FC-31 program. Exercises demonstrating the capabilities of the J-20 and J-16 mark an important milestone in the PLA Air Force's efforts to integrate the two new aircraft into frontline service and bring its capabilities forward very significant with a wide range of new capabilities.