Why has China’s PLA started sending ‘grandpa fighter jets’ to test Taiwan’s air defences?
- Last month an ‘island encirclement exercise’ featured four J-7s, a model that dates back to the 1960s and can be turned into unmanned aerial vehicles
- Retired warplanes turned into drones can be used to confuse air defence systems and the PLA has embraced them as a low-cost, no-casualty option
Military sources raised the possibility that the planes had been converted into drones, which offer a cost-efficient way of honing the People’s Liberation Army’s combat drills and testing Taiwan’s responses. They might also have been a way of testing whether all the island’s warplanes have resumed operations.
The “island encirclement exercise” on June 17 included four J-7s – fighters originally modelled on 1960s Soviet MiG-21s and known as “grandpa fighter jets” in Taiwan. It was the first time the jets had been used on such an operation since they started in 2016.
More modern aircraft, including two J-16 multi-role fighter jets and a Y-8 electronic warfare plane, also entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone during the exercise, prompting questions about why the older models had joined the operation.
According to mainland media reports, China has turned thousands decommissioned second-generation fighters, including J-7s, into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).