A five-member team of test pilots played a key role in the J-10 project, which not only paved the way for China’s development of future generations of aircraft but also revitalised the air force’s test pilot training system.

Lei Qiang, the son of a Korean war pilot and part of the five-member team, was selected to take the J-10 on its maiden flight on March 23, 1998.

Just six months previously, Lei and his four teammates had learned to fly American aircraft at an international test pilot school in the United Kingdom founded by a former flight instructor at the UK’s Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment, according to a report published in 2018 by Chuqiao, an online military magazine run by Chinese internet firm Sina.

Advanced aircraft, menacing missiles – China’s air show sends a warning

The report said one of Lei’s teammates, Qian Xuelin, was able to safely land a J-10 prototype that was hit by sudden wind disturbances during a test flight on July 12, 2002. Qian dealt with the dangerous situation in just five seconds thanks to pilot-induced oscillation training he received at the British school.

“Thanks old Mike!” Qian shouted as he landed the aircraft safely, the report said – a reference to his American instructor at the British school, where the five Chinese pilots were taught how to steadily fly Learjets, which have been used as variable stability simulators at the US Air Force Test Pilot School.

“Lei and his J-10 test pilot team were among the very rare PLA test pilots able to write papers and study reports like aircraft designers and engineers,” said Zhou Chenming, a researcher at the Yuan Wang think tank in Beijing.

“The overseas training pushed the air force to abandon its Soviet training approach and shift to the Western test pilot training system in 2005.”

China has never lacked daredevil pilots, all the way back to 1952 when the air force established a three-member test flight team to fly repaired Soviet-made warplanes destined for use in the Korean war. Seven years later, it set up its first test pilot training school in Xian, Shaanxi province.

China’s air force overhauls college training in combat-readiness mission

The air force has lost more than 2,000 pilots in the past six decades, with 30 of the fatalities being test pilots, according to the PLA.

“The former Soviet Union’s approach to train test pilots mainly required them to be as brave as common jet fighter pilots, but test pilots should be more rigorous and erudite,” Zhou said.

He said one big difference between the Soviet and US systems was the high value the US placed on “capable and scholarly” test pilots.

Based on American publications about the training of test pilots, Zhou said the Chinese air force test pilot school had come up with a comprehensive and systematic curriculum.

“The Chinese test pilot programme is now a systematic and institutional training system that is on a par with that of Western countries,” Li Guoen, a PLA test pilot who took part in the J-16 fighter-bomber’s maiden flight, said on the sidelines of an air force open day event in Changchun, Jilin province, in August.

Has China’s PLA expanded air control to ‘previously unreachable’ areas?

It costs more than 210 million yuan (US$29 million) to train a PLA test pilot, according to a report in the Beijing Evening News.

Fu Qianshao, a retired PLA Air Force equipment specialist, said candidates to become PLA test pilots should be experienced pilots with at least two degrees in aviation and engineering disciplines, with some having master’s degrees or even PhDs.

“The PLA test pilots are catching up to their American counterparts as more experienced and promising jet fighter pilots are joining the flight test team,” he said.

“The Chinese government now realises test pilots are the country’s treasure as they are also ‘flight engineers’ who can help the country’s aircraft development.”

However, there is still a gap between the PLA’s test pilots and their American counterparts, many of whom have combat experience. Zhou said it was only four years ago that the PLA Air Force started “stall and spin” flight training – a complex and dangerous manoeuvre regularly used by Russian and American pilots of supersonic fighters.

The US Air Force and US Navy founded their own test pilot schools during World War II, with most American test pilots since then having been combat veterans with outstanding records. The two schools were merged after the Cold War ended to cut costs, according to Flying the Edge: The Making of Navy Test Pilots, a book by US military journalist George Wilson that was published in 1992.

The joint training approach for test pilots had also been adopted by the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy, Zhou and Fu said.

Stephen Burgess, a professor in the department of international security studies at the US’ Air War College, said the US test pilot programme had been instrumental in upgrades to fifth-generation aircraft like the F-35 jet fighter and the development of the next generation of aircraft, with the PLA struggling to catch up.

“The PLA … may lag behind US development due to the assessed inferior quality of the PLA test pilot programme,” he said. “The real comparison of short- to medium-term capabilities must analyse the training and flight hours of US pilots versus their PLA counterparts. This also leads to adjustments in the current fighter aircraft.”