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Experts expected that the J-20 fighter would witness an increase in delivery rates to 120 aircraft in 2025, which means that it would reach 250% of the delivery rates of F-35 aircraft to the US Air Force, despite it being a much larger twin-engine aircraft.
The increase in deliveries allowed a greater number of brigades to receive J-20 aircraft annually, which helped 8 brigades in the Chinese army deploy the fighter at the end of 2022.
Five other brigades in the Chinese army confirmed that they would receive the aircraft in 2023.
In late December, the 97th Air Brigade at Dazu Air Base in Chongqing near Chengdu, and the 4th Air Brigade at Foshan Air Base near Shenzhen, deployed the fifth-generation J-20 stealth aircraft.
The J-20s replace the J-7E lightweight third-generation fighters, a class that is rapidly being retired from service, and are replaced by the J-20, J-16 and J-10C, all of which can be acquired at high rates.
The 97th Air Brigade is the first to replace J-7 aircraft with J-20 fighters. The 4th Air Brigade acquired J-20s to replace its primary J-11 fighters, a derivative of the Russian Su-27 that had been produced under license from the mid-1990s.
The strategic location of Foshan Air Base allows J-20 aircraft to carry out air defense missions over Shenzhen and Hong Kong, as well as Longpu Naval Base on Hainan Island, 500 kilometers southwest, which hosts the backbone of the country’s fleet of nuclear missile submarines.
The facility is located just 700 kilometers from Taiwan , a potential hotspot of hostilities.
Warning to opponents
The J-20 was first delivered to the Chinese Air Force in 2016. The first in the Chinese military to receive it was the 176th Air Brigade at the Dingxin Flight Test and Training Base in the Gobi Desert, followed in February 2018 by the 172nd Air Brigade at the Changzhou Flight Test and Training Base near From the cities of Tianjin and Beijing.
Eleven months later, the 9th Air Brigade received the fighters at Wuhu Air Base near Shanghai.
The 9th Air Brigade is the last unit to receive the new J-20 aircraft, and the last to receive basic variants of the aircraft with derivatives of the Russian AL-31FM2 engine, before the improved J-20A variant with the WS-10C.
Chinese analysts at the time interpreted the deployment as aiming to send a signal to Japan and South Korea not to interfere in a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
For the first time, J-20 aircraft were delivered to multiple brigades annually, in 2022.
In March 2022, the 6th Air Brigade stationed at Zhengzhou Air Base became the sixth unit to integrate the new fighters.
This was followed in April by confirmation that the 111th Air Brigade based in Xinjiang had received the J-20s.
The 8th Air Brigade at Changcheng Air Base, located near the Korean Peninsula, became the 8th brigade to deploy stealth fighters, in August 2022.
The number of brigades that deploy J-20 aircraft is likely to be no less than 12.
The world’s first fighter
The J-20 can be considered in many respects the world’s premier air engagement fighter, with twice the range of any Western fighter class and a much greater radar.
Its avionics are widely considered to be on par with those of the F-35.
The scale of the J-20’s deployment and the rate of acquisition have “extremely serious consequences for the balance of power in the Pacific region,” according to Military Watch.
The J-20’s primary armament, consisting of PL-10 and PL-15 missiles, outperforms its American and Russian counterparts when it entered service in mid-2010.
Unlike the F-35’s single engine, which has very limited flight performance, less than half the range of the J-20, and no supercruise capability, the Chinese fighter’s twin engine can accommodate many missiles, has overwhelmingly superior flight performance, and has high levels of cruise control. Of maneuverability.
No other fighter is considered technologically equal. The older American F-22 uses outdated avionics and sensors, and lacks comparable central warfare capabilities or features such as helmet-mounted sights or distributed aperture systems. This puts it at a severe disadvantage against either the J-20 or F-35.
The J-20’s capabilities improved rapidly between production runs, with a new WS-15 engine entering serial production in early 2023.
The WS-15 engine is expected to facilitate super-cruise at much higher speeds, perhaps exceeding Mach 2, while revolutionizing the fighter’s flight performance at all speeds, allowing combat operations at higher altitudes.
