The Chinese language Individuals’s Liberation Army Air Power has marked the 76th anniversary by releasing a movie that for the primary time confirmed the nation’s GJ-11 Darkish Dragon unmanned fighter flying in formation with the J-20 air superiority fighter and J-16D digital assault jet. Though the three plane have lengthy been anticipated to function collectively, that is the primary publicly accessible imagery of them doing so. The three plane are thought of to have extremely complementary capabilities, with the GJ-11 being slower, however thought to have notably excessive stealth capabilities, which mixed with a level of expendability optimise it for deep penetration missions. These stealth capabilities are complemented by the J-16D’s superior digital warfare capabilities, which might enable it to jam enemy assaults whereas singling out ground-based air defence techniques for focusing on utilizing its anti-radiation missiles.
The J-20 has lengthy been anticipated to function an airborne command publish to help operations by GJ-11s, with the twins seat J-20S variant having been seen in simulations up to now main formations of 4 of the unmanned plane. The fighter can accommodate a drone management officer in its second seat. Use of drone wingmen is predicted to be a key characteristic of future sixth technology fighters, though superior fifth technology designs most notable the J-20 and American F-35 are additionally anticipated to profit from them in future. Though it stays unknown what armaments are used to equip the GJ-11, it has been speculated that it may carry PL-15 and probably even PL-XX air to air missiles, permitting the plane to serve power multipliers for J-20 items for air-to-air engagements. Vital unmanned fighter packages are at the moment additionally underneath growth in the US, Russia and Australia to help fifth and sixth technology manned fighters, with notable instance together with the Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat and the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik.
The J-20S is predicted to pioneer operations as a command publish for unmanned plane, with these capabilities anticipated to be enhanced significantly in preparation for the service entry of China’s first sixth technology fighters within the early 2030s. The primary flight prototypes of two separate sixth technology fighter designs have been unveiled in December 2024, with each packages having continued to progress quickly. A considerably larger problem that China faces in growing unmanned wingman plane is the requirement for for much longer ranges than its Western counterparts, which is important because of the significantly longer ranges that its manned fighters have. The J-20, for instance, has a fight radius of over 2000 kilometres, greater than double that of its Western rivals the F-22 and F-35, whereas the fight radius of its successor being developed by the Chengdu Plane Company is predicted to be greater than double this. The event of a lot bigger and longer ranged unmanned plane thus seems extremely attainable to help these sixth technology manned fighter packages.
