New Footage of Key Chinese Stealth Fighter J-20

Defence affairs - Def-Geopolitics on X

n January 11 Chinese state media published new footage showing the first test flight of the J-20 fifth generation fighter, making 15 years since the event in January 2011. 

A ceremony marking the event, and a never before seen large crowd from the Chengu Aerospace Corporation which was responsible for the aircraft’s development, were seen. The J-20 currently serves as China’s most capable air superiority fighter type, and has been in service for nine years, with procurement rates far exceeding those by the U.S. Armed Forces of their own much lighter and shorter ranged fifth generation fighter the F-35. While the J-20 program has caused multiple significant surprises in the Western world, including the scale on which it has been built, the rate at which it has been enhanced, and the speed with which it could be brought into service just six years after its first flight, the fact that the program could enter a flight prototype stage as early as January 2011 itself came as a major shock to analysts in the United States in particular. 

The J-20’s first flight occurred during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to China, which was widely interpreted as a show of force in the wake of the Barack Obama administration’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ initiative aimed as increasingly military pressure on China. Referring to the Chinese leader, Gates stated at the time: “I asked President Hu [Jintao] about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test.” Gates would later downplay China's ability to develop or operate a fifth generation fighter, and predicted that the J-20, if indeed genuine, would not become operational before the 2020. He meanwhile made projections regarding the F-35 program which industry would prove far from capable of realising, with the J-20 program’s exceeding of Western expectations, and F-35’s inability to meet them, having significant implications or the balance of power between China and the United States. 

The J-20’s first flight occurred less than two years after orders had been given in the United States to terminate production of the F-22 fifth generation fighter, with the appearance of a Chinese rival fuelling calls among analysts to reverse this decision. By early 2011, however, not only was this far from feasible in a cost effective way, but the deep flaws with the F-22 has become increasingly apparent. This made it appear more prudent to invest in the lighter and cheaper F-35, which although lacking a high flight performance was significantly more sophisticated in its stealth features and avionics. The F-22’s computer architecture was effectively obsolete by the time it entered service due to the very long delays to the program, and even a quarter century after its first flight the aircraft still could not share data with other fighter units, which remained a tremendous handicap in the age of network centric warfare. An inability to fire any high off boresight weapons due to a lack of helmet mounted sights, meanwhile, made it one of the most vulnerable fighters in visual range combat.

The significant shortcomings of the F-22 program, and to a lesser extent the F-35, made the J-20’s contrastingly smooth and successful development all the more impactful. Not only was the F-22 left increasingly out of date, with its airframe materials by the late 2010s having been left behind by those of the F-35 and J-20 that were far better suited for stealth, but its extreme maintenance needs and outstandingly poor availability rates and high sustainment costs also made it far from cost effective. The J-20 would boast a combat radius over double that of either the F-35 or F-22, which remains a particularly significant advantage over the vast distances of the Pacific, while entering service integrating PL-15 and PL-10 air-to-air missiles that were near unanimously assessed to be significantly more advanced than the AIM-120D and AIM-9X carried by American fighters. The J-20 program has thus particularly stood out in the post-Cold War era for posing an outstanding and unique challenge to the U.S. and its strategic partners’ ability to achieve air dominance.