The Chinese language Individuals’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has printed new photographs displaying its uncommon J-11BSH long-range twin seat fighter plane conducting a flight coaching train below the Southern Theatre Command. The Command is chargeable for operations within the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, with the PLA remaining in a state of civil warfare with the Republic of China Armed Forces based mostly on Taiwan Island within the former, whereas safeguarding territory amid typically heated maritime disputes within the latter. As a number one hotspot or potential battle, this has led the regiments working below the Southern Theatre Command to typically be prioritised for receiving new tools, with the Command additionally being chargeable for defending a lot of China’s financial heartlands together with cities comparable to Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, in addition to strategic amenities comparable to the first base of the Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet on Hainan Island.
The J-11B is a a lot improved spinoff of the Soviet Su-27 Flanker heavyweight fighter, and entered service in 2009 with new engines, a a lot increased use of composite supplies, and extra fashionable avionics. Whereas the baseline J-11B noticed manufacturing concluded in 2018, the J-11BS twin seat variant continued manufacturing within the following years, and may serves as each a coach and as a command and management plane. J-11s operated by the Navy are frivolously modified, and are designated J-11BH, with the dual seat naval variant designated J-11BSH. The Su-27 entered service because the longest ranged fighter sort within the USSR, comfortably exceeding the endurance of any U.S. Air Drive or allied fighter, with the J-11B combining this vary with enhanced avionics which have made it optimum for prolonged maritime operations.
The PLA Navy Southern Theatre Command was the primary to obtain new enhanced variants of the J-11B, the J-11BGH, in 2021, which was developed by integrating ‘4+ era’ avionics, together with a contemporary energetic electronically scanned array radar, onto the J-11BH. These upgrades revolutionised the plane’s fight potential, and allowed it to combine new armaments developed for the J-20 fifth era fighter, most notably the PL-15 radar guided and PL-10 infrared guided air-to-air missiles which have all through the final decade been thought-about main contenders for the titles of probably the most succesful on the planet. The J-11B’s improvement performed a key function in bringing China’s fighter business ahead within the 2000s, and whereas removed from world main, it served as a key stepping stone permitting the nation to provide and operationalise among the world’s most succesful ‘4+ era’ and fifth era fighter varieties from the mid-2010s, after bridging key technological gaps with the US.
Though the J-11B has been largely overshadowed by newer fighter varieties, it continues to play a really important function in service, with the plane’s modernisation indicating that they’re meant to proceed to function for a few years to come back. China right now fields extra heavyweight lengthy vary fighters than Russia and NATO mixed, with the J-11’s giant manufacturing run at properly over 300 fighters having performed a key function on this. The J-11B was succeeded in manufacturing on the Shenyang Plane Company’s amenities by the J-16, which is an extra closely enhanced variant of the Su-27 that integrates a variety of applied sciences developed for the J-20 fifth era fighter.
The J-16 has been produced on a considerably bigger scale nonetheless, with numbers in service approaching 450 fighters, though the plane are operated solely by the Air Drive with none but serving within the Navy. The Shenyang Plane Company is presently growing one of many world’s first sixth era fighters, which was first seen in flight testing in December 2024, with its first fifth era fighter, the J-35, having been confirmed in 2025 to have entered service in each the Navy and the Air Drive. With China set to guide the world by over half a decade in fielding sixth era fighters, and increasing its fifth era fleet far sooner than another nation, the J-11B is right now working in a service with capabilities and a global standing which might be unrecognisable from these when it first entered service within the early 2010s.
