Hong Kong: The USA has thrown doubts over what its future program for a sixth-generation fighter might look like, with US Air Force officials recently questioning the expense of the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter as originally envisioned. On the contrary, China is believed to be proceeding at pace with its own equivalent fighter development.

Of course, it is difficult to ascertain definitive information on China's future sixth-generation fighter, since Beijing is extremely secretive about its top military programs.

However, there is sufficient evidence that the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will eventually field a modern fighter to succeed the current fifth-generation J-20 fighter.

Firstly, what is a sixth-generation fighter? Nobody has yet developed one, but there are various efforts around the world to create them. Potential characteristics of such advanced aircraft include stealth, efficient variable-cycle engines, enhanced human-systems integration that employ helmet-mounted displays, optional manning (where the same airframe can either have a pilot or be remotely controlled), and advanced digital capabilities (e.g. data fusion, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence [AI] and high-capacity networking).

The strongest admission for China's program came from a WeChat social media post by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in January 2019. In a video interview, Wang Haifeng, chief designer at the Chengdu Aerospace Corporation (CAC), acknowledged that China was conducting pre-research into sixth-generation fighters. In his posted interview, Wang discussed relevant elements such as teaming with drones, employing AI, greater stealth and omnidirectional sensors. He even admitted China's aim is to have a fighter ready to "protect the sea and sky" by 2035.

That was five years ago. ANI asked Rick Joe, a commentator on the PLA who has written for The Diplomat, for an updated estimate. Joe indeed considers that Beijing has an official program of record, and if the 2035 timescale is to be maintained, he suggested a maiden flight would have to occur at least five years before that. That would mean a prototype needs to ready in around 2028, something Joe believes is possible.

Another expert, Doctor Brendan Mulvaney, Director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) of the US Air Force Department, said, "We have a couple of little snippets and quotes" talking about China's sixth-generation program, but he predicted it would probably take "until the late 2030s, if not the early 2040s," to reveal a meaningful design. Dr. Mulvaney told ANI: "...They've done a remarkable job of closing the gap at this point, so give them another 15 years."

However, he admitted that it is difficult to predict how rapidly the Chinese program will progress. "I'd say it would take at least a decade to put all that through and get everything in place. Because again, it's not just the manned portion, it's also how do you make it supercruise, how do you have the engines, how do you have the stealth coatings?" He was open to the possibility of this date moving forward, especially if China achieves breakthroughs in areas like quantum computing. "They make big bets. When those big bets pay off, they pay off in spades."

The USA has itself confirmed the existence of a Chinese program. Whilst addressing China's ambitions, General Mark Kelly, head of the US Air Force Air Combat Command, said two years ago, "I can also tell you they're on track." He added, "By and large, they see it greatly the way we see it in terms of an exponential reduction in signature and exponential acceleration in processing power and sensing, and the ability to iterate in terms of open mission systems, to be able to essentially reprogram at the speed of relevance."

As well as these aforementioned confirmations of China's fighter program, Joe said other "indicators since 2019 in the semiofficial space have only increased". Relevant examples include AVIC artwork depicting generic next-generation fighter configurations, statements from military or industry people, plus various academic papers. Furthermore, satellite imagery captured a tailless fighter-like airframe at CAC facilities in October 2021. Nevertheless, Joe said the most important indications come from the Chinese-language PLA-watching grapevine.

Joe also believes that demonstrator testbeds, possibly subscale ones, have flown already. Similar to Western designs that are emerging, the Chinese aircraft will probably have a tailless, flying-wing arrowhead airframe. Joe is calling the new fighter the J-XD, but its official nomenclature is unknown.

Some question whether China has the technological capacity to produce a credible sixth-generation fighter, and Dr. Mulvaney assessed, "Today? No. Twenty years from now? Absolutely! And we've seen this time and time again. We're getting better at not...underestimating what the Chinese system is capable of when it sets its mind to it." Indeed, the PLA has a habit of surprising analysts, an obvious example being the PLAAF's fielding of the fifth-generation J-20 fighter.

Joe concurred that China has the requisite knowhow. "My view is, yes, they certainly do." He added, "I fully expect the J-XD to have some subsystems (like engines) which will be less capable than a US equivalent initially, simply because there are some domains where they are still catching up, albeit with significant closing of gaps over the past few decades."

Referring to important aspects relevant to sixth-generation fighters - such as aerodynamic design and control, flight control software, radiofrequency materials and shaping, sensors, data-links, combat management/fusion, weapons and integration of accompanying drones - Joe said, "I see them as playing in the general ballpark of other nations pursuing a sixth-gen capability." Additionally, "It's less about mastery of technologies, but just continuing to proceed along the path that's already fairly well projected at the moment."

Dr. Mulvaney pointed out that mastering jet engines has long been one of China's weaknesses, although it is improving in this realm. "At the end of the day, that's just science. I tell people that physics works the same in Berlin as it does in Beijing. If you put enough time and effort and you mobilize that system...you can make a good aerospace engine, especially for the military side."

The American academic said China "could still continue to buy some Russian systems and engines to get those final tweaks in but, at some point, the WS [engine] series is going to be just as capable as the Russians, and then they're going to continue to go because China has money to keep doing it".

China has spoken of its future fighter being unmanned, but Dr. Mulvaney suggested the design might end up being optionally manned. "You don't have to have a man, and you potentially let it go off on its own, or it could serve as a loyal wingman." He said a lot depends on how quickly China can develop AI systems and other associated technologies.

Doubtlessly, unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) and collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) figure prominently in PLA thinking alongside its new fighter. China possesses a capable and ambitious drone industry, with the high-end GJ-11 UCAV among the acme of Chinese military drones at the moment. Joe thinks the PLA has a small number of GJ-11s in advanced testing, plus he assumes various other sophisticated UCAVs "are in advanced development/testing or even limited trial service".

Furthermore, he believes the multitude of UCAVs and CCAs exhibited at airshows are "likely not representative of actual in-development UCAVs intended for the PLA, which are almost certainly more ambitious in scope".

China did well with its current J-20 fighter, and it can do the same with its next-generation design too. Dr. Mulvaney assesses the J-20 as being "a fairly capable, pretty modern fighter". He continued, "At the end of the day, is it as good as an F-22 or F-35? No, it's certainly not, but the Chinese don't need it to be. They have different methods of employment and it's doing different mission sets in different ways. So, in order to satisfy their counter-intervention mission - if they can keep the F-22s and F-35s and whatever other things we have, far enough away from China - then it doesn't matter. They're not going to go head to head and do dogfighting." The J-20's mission is to keep hostile fighters far from China's borders, something it can do with longer-range missiles.

CASI's director further explained: "The idea is that they aren't necessarily trying to defeat the US and our allies and partners piecemeal across the Pacific. They just simply want to keep us out long enough for them to accomplish whatever they're trying to do - it could be a quarantine, could be an invasion, could be rockets, or whatever. And so the J-20 is part of that counter-intervention mission, keeping people at bay long enough to allow the other parts of the PLA to do whatever it is they have to do," whether in the South China Sea or against Taiwan.

Joe told ANI: "For the J-20 as a program, its scale, production run and rate has somewhat exceeded my own expectations." He believes that J-20 production has already reached 300 aircraft. He further assessed: "The new J-20A, when powered by the WS15 [engine], with its associated other expected upgrades, will make it even more capable (of which genuine sustained supercruise will be one of the lesser important upgrades it will offer)."

Incidentally, China may use the J-20 to trial manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) as it develops its future J-XD fighter jet. This is where China's development of a twin-seat J-20 may come in, where the backseat operator could control drones. Joe believes the twin-seater J-20B's role "is to assist with the development and risk reduction for the J-20A, and it's likely that MUM-T will be an emerging capability" for the J-20A.

Dr. Mulvaney also elaborated on the twin-seat J-20B that appears to be just a technology demonstrator right now: "We haven't seen it go into serial production yet, so it's hard to say." In an interesting contrast, he noted that the US Air Force has chosen to go a mostly single-seat configuration for its advanced fighter generations, where it is assumed that computer systems are going to perform battle management tasks. "The PLA - they don't talk about a lot of the reasoning behind it - but potentially they've gone the other way and said, 'Hey, we're going to have a pilot in one of the seats and then a battle manager in the other one, simply because you don't want to overwhelm the human, the human being the weak link in the chain. That's one potential reason that they're developing that two-seater."

Dr. Mulvaney pointed out that, by the time the new sixth-generation fighter enters service, the PLAAF should have overcome its current shortage of air-to-air refueling aircraft. "So 15 years from now, that probably won't be the impediment that it is today, which would then allow them to use it potentially in different ways. Right now you don't have the legs, so you're not planning to use the J-20 far away from China. So you come up with a doctrine that says, here's how we fight close to China or over China, or shoot things nearby. If you eventually develop all those systems that allow them to fly farther out, who knows what else they could do?"

The CASI director concluded, "We should expect the Chinese to, over the next 15 years, have their air component become more joint or integrated, and probably also be more tied to both their space force and cyber force. That seems to be the way modern warfare is progressing, so it shouldn't be any great surprise to see the Chinese focused on that as well."

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