Chinese test pilots pave way for development of latest PLA warplanes

Name: Mighty Dragon: China’s upgraded J-20 stealth fighter
Uploaded: 2022-11-12T04:00:09.000Z
Duration: 1 min 56 s
Description: Mighty Dragon: China’s upgraded J-20 stealth fighter

Chinese military’s top aviators ‘able to write papers and study reports like aircraft designers’, observer says

Pioneering five-member team that played key role in J-10 project trained in UK

Reading Time:4 minutes

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J-20 jet fighters fly in formation at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua

Minnie Chan

Published: 12:00pm, 12 Nov 2022

People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilots showed off China’s aviation superiority muscle at the Zhuhai air show in Guangdong province this week, with demonstration flights by the J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth jet fighter, Y-20 heavy lifter, Z-20 helicopter, H-6K strategic bomber and J-16D electronic warfare plane.

Defence experts said the development of such aircraft would not have been possible without input from the air force’s death-defying test pilots, and a decision made nearly two decades ago to adopt an experimental flight test training system pioneered by the United States.

China’s aircraft development programme reached a milestone in 1998 when state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group launched the J-10, its domestically developed fourth-generation jet fighter.

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Mighty Dragon: China’s upgraded J-20 stealth fighter

The aircraft was formally commissioned seven years later, with a flawless “zero crash” record in flights by experimental prototypes.

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.

Song Wencong, the chief designer of the J-10, was the mentor of Yang Wei, who led design work on the J-20 – Beijing’s answer to the US F-22 and F-35 jet fighters deployed in the region.

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.

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