In this article:
The race to develop the first fifth generation stealth fighters
Abraham Abrams is an expert in East Asian military affairs and security holding a masters degree in War Studies from King’s College London, with a thesis on PLA modernisation, as well as a Masters in East Asian International Relations. After years studying China’s defence sector and major weapons programs, as well as the rise of its tech sector and industries more broadly, Abrams concluded that the J-20 program marked a major turning point in the country’s military and technological standings with tremendous geopolitical and security implications.
He has published two books on the subject, including J-20 Mighty Dragon: Asia’s First Stealth Fighter in the Era of China’s Military Rise with Helion & Company, and the longer title China’s Stealth Fighter: The J-20 ‘Mighty Dragon’ and the Growing Challenge to Western Air Dominance with Pen & Sword. The book was assessed in Taiwan to be of particular significance, and accordingly saw publication in translation in Taipei expedited for a release seven months before the English language editions.
The United States and Soviet Union began a race to develop the first and most capable fifth generation stealth fighters in the late 1970s. The Cold War’s end, however, was followed by both a near total collapse of Russian efforts and major cuts and delays to American programs. This provided an opening for a rising and fast modernising Chinese defence industry to position its own ambitious program to produce a world leading fighter jet with next generation capabilities.
The turning point in the balance of power between China and the United States
The J-20 program has epitomised China’s rise from a laggard in combat aviation into a world leader, with the new books detailing the fighter’s technologies, capabilities, production timeline, design priorities, roles, evolution, and the units and locations where it has been deployed. Also detailed are the ways other countries have responded to it, and how the last 30 years of China’s industrial and technology sector’s modernisation positioned the country to produce what may well now be the world’s top air superiority fighter.
The J-20 program is the most high-profile indicator of a turning point in the balance of power between China and the United States, with the books’ assessment of the history of Chinese air superiority capabilities, and how the Korean War in particular has influenced the country to place a very strong emphasis on the need to field a leading fighter for air-to-air combat, thus providing an important deeper understanding of the program.
Important context to understanding the J-20’s significance is the parallel development of supporting assets from aerial tankers to electronic warfare planes, which is also explored in detail. The program is also shown to have had a particularly significant influence in the United States, ranging from placing discourse on the F-35’s modernisation and on sixth generation fighter development in an entirely new context, to stimulating the formation of new counter-stealth aggressor training units, development of new air-to-air missiles, and the acquisition of E-7 ‘flying radar’ aircraft among many other responses to the new challenge.
In November, The Aviation Geek Club asked its readers to submit questions about the J-20 Mighty Dragon. We submitted them to Abrams.
This post features the first 4 answers.
Produced exclusively for domestic use
– Is there any plan China to export J-20? Does China plan to sell J-20 to other countries?
China is currently the only country with fighter planes in production that are not offered for export, with the J-20, J-15 and J-16 produced exclusively for domestic use. While previously the Soviet Union did produce combat aircraft that were prohibited for export, these restrictions were quickly loosened after the end of the Cold War in 1989. Although the J-20 is not available for export, its lighter counterpart the FC-31 has been marketed abroad, with a new office reported in February 2022 to have been established specifically for this purpose.
The FC-31 design, developed by the rival of the J-20’s own producer, the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, has a carrier based variant for China’s navy as well as an export variant. The aircraft integrates many of the same technologies as the J-20, including distributed aperture systems and the same missile classes, but has a more conventional design without a canard delta wing, and is expected to carry a smaller radar, be less manoeuvrable, and have a shorter range. The aircraft is not yet in service.
The possibility of the J-20 eventually being offered for export cannot be ruled out, particularly as sixth generation fighters begin to be introduced around 2030 which would make the J-20’s technologies less sensitive. This could mirror the process of the Soviet Union making older variants of its top interceptor the MiG-25 available from the late 1980s, as it prepared to induct its next generation MiG-31 and Su-27 into service, or the United States’ greater willingness to export the F-15 as the F-22 approached readiness for service entry.
No gun into the fuselage
A number of major obstacles to exports remain, however, including the fact that the capabilities of the FC-31 are likely to be considered satisfactory for foreign markets, with the fighter itself being one of the world’s most capable. Furthermore, China lacks a comparable network of wealthy and politically closely aligned states as the United States does to market the F-35, with the number of suitable clients for such a sensitive, complex and costly fighter as the J-20 being few and far between.
– Will there be a future J-20 variant with a gun onboard? And will there be a naval variant?
Much like the F-35B and F-35C, it appears unlikely that a gun will be built into the fuselage of any future J-20 variant, as the considerable weight of these armaments and their rounds are increasingly considered non-essential for stealth fighters. Nevertheless, it remains possible that, like with the two aforementioned F-35 variants, a gun pod could be developed for the fighter designed to conserve stealth capabilities, which provides the flexibility of allowing the aircraft to forego the weight of such a weapon if it is not considered useful.
Even the F-35A, although it does mount a gun, carries only enough rounds for approximately four seconds of fire, with the utility of the weapon even for an aircraft envisaged for close air support roles considered limited. Nevertheless, the consensus regarding the utility of guns on stealth fighters may well change in future, particularly if it is found that a significant portion of engagements between stealth aircraft are likely to occur within visual ranges due to difficulties in targeting using radar guided weapons.
A possible naval variant
The development of a naval variant of the J-20 remains possible, with a number of fighter classes in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force having slightly modified variants in the Navy. The most notable example is the J-20’s direct predecessor the J-11B, which was developed into the J-11BH – the latter H standing for ‘Hai’ meaning ‘Sea.’ A number of unconfirmed reports have claimed that the variant differs slightly from air force variants in its receipt of anti-corrosive treatments for operations over water.
The J-20 would be a natural successor to the J-11BH fighters in the Navy, although the gradual transfer of naval aviation fighter and bomber assets to the air force increasingly limits the scale that such acquisitions may be made on. Regarding the possibility of a carrier based variant, this appears unlikely due to the development a carrier based variant of the FC-31 fifth generation fighter design, which although expected to be less capable than the J-20, appears to have been considered more suitable for carrier operations.
J-20 combat radius
– What is the realistic combat radius of the J-20?
The combat radius of any fighter jet depends on multiple factors including how fast it is flying, at what altitude, and with what size of weapons load, as well as whether it is carrying any external fuel. Figures vary less drastically for fifth generation fighters due to their requirement to carry all fuel and weapons internally if seeking to conserve their stealth capabilities, in comparison to older fighters where the quantities of fuel and armaments carried are not limited by internal carriage capacities. The combat radius of the J-20 variants currently in service with AL-31 or WS-10 engines is estimated to be approximately 2000 kilometres. Variants with the WS-10 have a much longer supersonic range than those using the older Russian engines, however, due to their greater non-afterburner thrust levels and resulting ability to fly supersonically without using fuel hungry afterburners.
Multiple factors contribute to the J-20’s much longer range than Western fighter aircraft. The fighter was developed as a direct successor to the Su-27 Flanker, which was designed to be able to escort bombing missions against the United Kingdom from bases in Poland, and accordingly had a much longer range than fighter in Western air forces. Fighter programs of each new generation have consistently aimed to significantly improve on the ranges of their predecessors, with the F-35 having a much longer range than the F-16, which in turn could fly much further than the F-5. For the J-20 program, the Su-27 set a high bar from the outset.
J-20 combat radius among the widest in the world
Most significantly, however, the J-20 was designed for operations in the Pacific theatre, where the distances between friendly and enemy bases are very significantly longer than those seen in Europe. Western fighter aircraft developed primarily with combat in Europe in mind accordingly rely heavily on external fuel tanks to operate in the region, and much more heavily on aerial refueling. China’s aerial tanker fleet remains a small fraction of the size of that of the United States, which is partly a result of its fighters on average having much longer ranges among other factors.
Although the J-20’s combat radius is among the widest in the world, upcoming variants integrating WS-15 engines are expected to have significantly wider combat radii, with some sources estimating that they could be over 2500 kilometres. The new engine, which was reported in early 2023 to have entered serial production, will provide the J-20 with by far the highest thrust levels of any fighter in the world, and allow for non-afterburner supersonic flight at far higher speeds, possibly at over Mach 2. This will allow J-20 units to respond to threats much more quickly without significantly compromising their range.
With the fighters deployed across the Chinese mainland, the ability to fly very long combat sorties is key to the fleet’s ability to respond to emerging threats in faraway regions – for example allowing J-20 deployed near Korea or Tibet to respond to contingencies in the Taiwan Strait in ways shorter ranged aircraft never could. Although often overlooked, with attention going to combat related performance factors, the J-20’s long range is one of its most outstanding features.
J-20 combat radius doubles that of F-22 and F-35
– What is the combat radius of the J-20 compared to American fifth generation fighters?
The J-20’s combat radius is approximately double that of the F-22 and F-35. While the F-35’s range is much longer than that of the F-16 that preceded it, it is a much lighter fighter class. The F-22 was initially envisaged to have a much longer range, potentially close to double that of the F-15, which would make it comparable to that of the J-20 today. One of the most significant shortcomings of the F-22 program is that it produced a very short ranged fighter relative to its size, with its endurance being significantly shorter than that of the F-15 from the generation that preceded it.
Both the J-20 and the F-35 were previously expected to see their ranges substantially increased, the former through integration of the WS-15 and the latter through the integration of an engine developed under the Adaptive Engine Transition Program. On March 10, 2023, however, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced the decision not to further develop the new engine, and while the F-35 will receive a new enhanced variant of its F135 engine near the end of the decade, this will go a lot less far towards closing the vast range gap between it and the J-20.
Photo credit: Photo credit:Own work N509FZvia Wikipedia and Republic of Korea Air Force
