Jane’s Defence Weekly: China Making 148 Aircrafts p.a. Mostly Advanced Fighters

China enters the era of 3.5-generation fighter jet with the commissioning of J-10B fighter jet

J-18 stealth bomber, a hot topic of foreign media

UK Jane’s Defence Weekly publishes in its December 4 issue an article titled “Aiming High: China’s Air Ambition” as a year-end summary of China’s quick progress in developing military aircrafts.

China has been replacing its outdated J-7 and J-8 fighters with fourth-generation J-10s and J-11s, the production lines of which are operating at full capacity. As a result, the percentage of advanced fighters has increased greatly since 2007 though the number of fighters has decreased from 1,500 in 2007 to 1,300 now.

Since 2011, China has successfully carried out maiden flights of 7 new types of aircrafts including two types of fifth-generation fighter jets.

In 2012, China produced 148 aircrafts for its navy, army and air force. Top priority was given to the production of J-20 and J-31 stealth fighter jets in 2011. Now, J-10 is the most important fighter project in China’s air force including its more advanced version J-10B. The report says that J-10B sets example for China’s upgrading of its fighter jets. It is China’s first fighter that uses phased array radar. In addition, there has been improvement in its air inlet and remote sensors and electronic war capacity.

Photos of series production of J-10B have been posted on the Internet, but there has not yet been official news of the commissioning of J-10B in Chinese air force.

The report expects that there will be 600 fighter jets of J-10 family in service. Moreover, J-11B is now being developed smoothly though previously lots of problems have been encountered in its development. It uses China’s homegrown WS-10A turbofan engines. At least 4 air force regiments are equipped with J-11Bs

J-11B has subsystems with enhanced performance, a strengthened fuselage with synthetic material, improved fire control radar and a new flight control system.

It is said that PLA navy has been equipped with J-10B since 2010.

Enhancing Air-to-Surface Attack Capability

Chinese air force is now being turned from an air defense force to a force capable of both attack and defense. The article says that China is making efforts to improve its renaissance, early warning and strategic bombing capability and strive to build up a modern strategic air force. In 2013, Chinese aviation industry are making progress in carrying out projects of 9 combat aircraft including the production of H-6K bomber, JH-7A fighter-bomber and J-10A and J-11B fighter jets and the development of J-10B, J-15, J-16, J-20 and J-31 multi-purpose fighter jets with fairly strong air-to-surface attack capability.

In addition to combat aircrafts, China has made breakthroughs in developing transport and early warning aircrafts. Maiden flight of Y-20 transport was carried out in January 2013. It has in addition developed a medium-sized transport Y-9 and KJ-200, KJ-2000 and ZDK-03 AEW&Cs.

Weak Points in Some Key Areas

China is weak in engine production and has to import engines for its aircrafts. In addition, it has a great shortage of supporting aircrafts such as transport helicopters, strategic transport aircrafts, and renaissance and refueling aircrafts.

Source: Global Times “UK magazine: China building two types of fighter jets with full capacity, turning out 148 aircrafts this year” (summary by Chan Kai Yee based on the report in Chinese)

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