The Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Army Air Drive 2nd Air Brigade has been confirmed to have begun to deploy J-20 fifth technology fighters, marking a serious enchancment for the unit’s capabilities which is able to remodel the way it operates in future. Primarily based at Yulong Airbase in Chifeng, Inside Mongolia below the Northern Theatre Command, the brigade is situated roughly 400 kilometres from Beijing, and bears duty for guarding the Chinese language capital. The J-20’s fight radius of roughly 2000 kilometres permits the fighters to loiter over and round Beijing for appreciable durations to fulfil air defence duties within the occasion of battle. The 2nd Air Brigade is the third fighter unit deployed close to Beijing has been confirmed to have reequipped with the J-20, following the 172nd Air Brigade on the Cangzhou Flight Coaching Base in Hebei which operationalised the fighters in February 2018, and the nineteenth Air Brigade at Zhangjiakou Airbase, additionally in Hebei, which was confirmed to have operationalised the plane in February 2025. The deployment of those three brigades has supplied Beijing with among the greatest fighter safety on this planet.
Earlier than receiving the J-20, the 2nd Air Brigade had from 2019 operated J-10C light-weight ‘4+ technology’ fighters. The J-10C is considered one of three superior fighters which were procured in parallel, alongside the J-16 and the J-20, with the previous two being fourth technology plane that make in depth use of applied sciences develop for the J-20 starting from their armaments and sensors to their heads up shows and airframe supplies. The J-10C has confirmed to be a extremely succesful fighter in air-to-air fight, holding its personal towards the a lot heavier J-16 in simulated engagements, and outperforming the Russian Su-35 and French Rafale in simulated and actual world engagements. It’s nonetheless restricted in its potential to defend Beijing particularly by its mild weight and ensuing restricted vary and small radar dimension. With a fight radius properly below half that of the J-20, the transition from the J-10C to the brand new fifth technology fighter is thus significantly transformative for brigade. There stays a big risk, nonetheless, that it’ll proceed to function numerous J-10Cs alongside the brand new fighters, presumably as a part of a long run plan to discipline a high-low mixture.
The 2nd Air Brigade’s tasks are anticipated to increase far past the defence of Beijing, with the J-20’s significantly lengthy vary, far exceeding that of any Western fighter class, permitting the brigade to bear larger duty for operations within the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, together with close to potential hotspots such because the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and the Korean Peninsula. Though the latest inauguration of a brand new administration in South Korea is predicted to proceed to calm inter-Korean tensions, and North Korea’s improvement of an more and more formidable nuclear missile deterrent paired with speedy typical modernisation go away its forces in a a lot stronger place to discourage attainable Western assaults, as Pyongyang’s treaty ally China nonetheless stays obliged to arrange for contingencies on the peninsula. With J-20s at Yulong Airbase being inside vary of a number of airbases throughout Japan deploying F-35 fifth technology fighters, that are operated in separate models by the U.S. Air Drive, Navy and Marine Corps, the 2nd Air Brigade’s J-20s are additionally anticipated to shoulder a big duty for defending Chinese language airspace towards the rising Western stealth fighter fleet within the area.
The primary ever encounter confirmed to have occurred between the J-20 and the F-35 came about over the East China Sea, highlighting the rising concentrations of each stealth fighter courses working over the realm. Alongside the US, not solely has the Japan Air Self Defence Drive procured F-35s at a substantial charge, with plans to discipline 147 of the plane, however European states and Australia have additionally prioritised Japanese bases for deployments of the plane as a part of efforts to make sure a Western-favouring stability of energy within the area. Evaluating the 2 fighters, the F-35 advantages from digital intelligence gathering capabilities which can be thought-about unrivalled for a fighter, and when paired with its stealth capabilities and digital warfare suite, are optimum for countering adversaries’ ground-based air defence networks.In distinction, the J-20 was designed as a a lot bigger plane with a much more spectacular flight efficiency, bigger weapons payload, and far heavier radar to optimise it for prime finish air-to-air engagements. The 2 are thought-about to be in a league of their very own amongst operational fighters at present.
Though the J-20 is at the moment in manufacturing on a really giant scale estimated at round 120 fighters per yr, manufacturing might decline within the early 2030s as China is poised to deliver two sixth technology fighter courses into service, each of which have been unveiled in December 2024 in flight testing phases. With the US estimated to be a number of years behind, this has raised questions relating to the way forward for the F-35 program, which has important implications for the stability of energy within the East China Sea adjoining to the 2nd Air Brigade’s working base. As J-20s are produced at a brand new a lot greater charge, resulting in projections that the fleet will come to exceed over 1000 fighters, it’s anticipated that additional brigades close to the East China Sea, in addition to close to Beijing, will shortly additionally start to transform to the plane. Procurement charges of the J-20 far exceed these of any single fighter class by anybody service elsewhere on this planet, with F-35 procurements by the U.S. Air Drive remaining at simply 20-40 p.c of J-20 procurements by the Folks’s Liberation Army Air Drive.
