Turning to the history of war in recent decades, almost every large-scale conflict is proving the same pattern: who controls the sky, who controls the battlefield. The 1991 gulf war pushed that pattern to its extreme, and the continued bombing over kosovo in 1999 taught the world once again. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the united states military f-22 and f-35 invisible fighters were re-assessed, and the three cards, invisible, ultrasounding, and over-the-horizon, were fully assembled, and the global air war rules were rewritten。
At that stage, the cards that the chinese air force had at hand were not very large. A limited number of su-27s, combined with the subsequent nationalization of 11, were added to the single-haired one-size-ten, which formed the most effective part of the four-generation series. These platforms are not bad among the same generation, but if we are to face up to f-22, who owns an invisible and aim-120 package of weapons, we will have to turn our backs. As for the larger number of service, 7 and 8, there is little room to respond to the fifth generation of invisible warplanes。
It is in this technology that a five-generation machine belonging to itself is beginning to be put on the stage. By the time we look back today at the first flight over chengdu on 11 january 2011, even after the past 15 years, a considerable number of people in the offshore community still find it a little weird。
The accident at the end of the runway
Throughout 2010, the development of hidden warplanes in china by foreign opinion was largely a watch-and-see gesture with a few doubts. In that year, when then united states secretary of defense robert gates spoke in public about the eln's fifth-generation warplane project, he moved it to a practical stage, roughly beyond 2020, with a generally conservative judgement of china's ability to develop or use a fifth-generation warplane。
A dramatic scene took place a few months later. The first pilot flight of the zero batch, which was scheduled to take place on 7 january 2011, was rescheduled for the first flight at 1250 hours on 11 january 2011, when the weather was not ideal. The timing of the flight was rather subtle and was almost on the way to gates。
The first flight, which coincided with a visit to china by united states secretary of defense robert gates, was interpreted by the outside world as a demonstration of china's strength to the united states; but the evening of the first flight, the deputy director of the foreign affairs office of the ministry of defence of the people's republic of china, guan fing, indicated that the decision to test the flight was a normal working arrangement that did not target any country or incident。
The military media abroad later dug up a lot of details surrounding this coincidence. Gates subsequently disclosed to the journalist that he had directly testified to the chinese authorities on the matter, and was informed that it was a planned and pre-arranged experiment that had no direct bearing on his visit. True and false interpretations, which have not subsided for so many years, point to the fact that for the first time in the 20th century, observers across the pacific are caught by surprise。
If this history is taken a few further steps forward, it will be discovered that the b-20 did not actually come out of space. The development phase of the priority model project was initiated in 2007. The chinese military and authorities support competent units to undertake the development of subsystems and systems-grade on-board equipment, which are developed in a competitive manner to reduce project risks. In november 2009, the deputy commander of the air force of the people's liberation army of china (pla) was expected to be in service at a time point of 2017, with research and development funding estimated at over $4. 4 billion. This timetable appears to be flat and the window actually left for the entire flying team is quite compact。
Interestingly, the gap emerges when the pace of development of the s-20 is compared horizontally with other invisible machines at the same time. The united states f-22 flew for 16 years from its inception in 1981 to the first flight of the prototype in 1997; and russia's su-57 took more than 30 years from the dawn of the late 1980s to the bulk delivery front. As for the five-generation machine programme planned by europe and japan during the same period, there was no such thing as a test flight at that point in 2011. The first flight in january 2011 and full service in 2017 became a hidden fighter jet in use outside the united states. Such speed of advance is indeed rare on a global scale, and it is no wonder those overseas analysts scratch their heads as soon as they mention it。
A protracted war at the end of the production line
It is often the most difficult road to cross from prototype to quantum. The scale of the boom-20 can be seen today, backed by the death of cheng fei and a host of accompanying institutes for more than a decade. Aerodynamic layouts, radar systems, flight control software, composite materials, each of which is step by step, step by step。
It's about 2019. On 9 march 2017, zhaozhi confirmed for the first time that he had served in the chinese people's liberation army air force. On 30 july 2017, the three-engineered fleet of scrambling-20s took part in a military parade to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the chinese people's liberation army (cpla). On 9 february 2018, the air force combat unit was assembled in the range of 200. Since then, pulse production lines have begun to expand gradually and early batches of capacity bottlenecks have slowly been broken。
After entering the 2020s, production data were high and the estimates of overseas think tanks changed year after year. At this point in 2026, no one knew where the end of this climb would be. An updated report issued by the royal united military research institute estimates that the chinese people's liberation army air force will be equipped with approximately 1,000 razed to 20 by 2030, given the significant expansion in production capacity. Production is expected to remain at around 120 per year. At present, there are no other aircraft in the world that can purchase half of that number。
At almost the same time, the instant figures given by the american media are more direct. According to an analysis by the united states military observer, china may have exceeded 500 in-service heavy invisibility fighter jets and, at the current production rate, may even force 1,000 directly by 2030. How this figure is spelled out is the simple idea of overseas. On the basis of the equipment of an aviation brigade of 28 and 20, there are 504 under 18 brigades. Consideration should be given to retaining a pool of 20 and some as standby units, which should range from 40 to 60. With this addition, the threshold of 500 is not exaggerated。
From a domestic perspective, the acceleration nodes of this quantum curve are actually quite clear. According to the official accountAviation industrySung fei reported that it successfully completed its 2025 mission goals and called them "a high-quality completion goal for seven consecutive years". Once the rhythm of the annual centennial is stabilized, the military formation of the five-generation aircraft has a completely different imagination. You know, the comparison between f-22, which went from starting work to a complete cut-off, and the total number of production machines, which combined, was just 187, and when the production line was dismantled, there was almost no way to resume production。
A fight in a heart problem
Talking about the road we've travelled in the past 20 years, we can't get around an old topic that's been around for more than 20 years: engines. Within the engineering community, there is a plain saying that the body can be slowly grinded, the air moved slowly, but the engine is not in place, and the performance of the five-generator will always remain on the drawings。
Three faces have been replaced by the power configuration of the boom-20. When it entered the army air force in march 2017, it carried the russian saturn al-31f engine, which was originally designed for the su-27 family and was not designed for hidden warplanes. China had built one of the world's most advanced warplane bodies, but had to rely on imported russian engines to drive it. This situation lasted for several years and did not begin to relax until the vortex-10c mature production began. In the future, it's the real thing。
That delivery in late 2025 was almost a milestone in the domestic aviation engine industry. For the first time, new video footage confirms that the first batch production of the 5th generation of shaan-20 aircraft equipped with two vortex-15 vortex engines has been completed, which is a major node of china's most interesting fighter project。
It was reported that the first flight of a mass machine with that type of engine took place on 27 december. Closely linked to this story is the opening of a series of public images in early 2026. China has published a set of images, a yellow-coloured warplane with a vortex-15 engine, which normally corresponds to flights during the production or acceptance phase. On 24 january 2026, chengdu aircraft industries inc. Published the photograph of s-20a, whose exhaust characteristics coincided with the vortex-15 engine。
The engine was surrounded by an unusual mix of technical evaluations from home and abroad. According to china national radio and television, vortex-15 can generate up to 18. 5 tons of thrust, a level comparable to that of the f135 engine equipped by united states f-35 aircraft. Such a high thrust is sufficient to keep the aircraft on ultrasound cruises without additional force. Turbo-15 is one of the most sophisticated models currently available globally in the production of aircraft engines, with a push-over comparison to f135, which is only loaded on f-35 of the known models. Turbo-15 is significantly more efficient than f119, which drives f-22, and the new generation of five-generation russian motors。
From al-31 to turbo-10c, to turbo-15, it took about 15 years to complete the power puzzle. The installation of new engines into the production machine was a major leap forward for the chinese warplane engine industry, and in the mid-2000s, some 20 years ago, china was unable to even create an engine comparable to the f110 and al-31f used by the fourth generation of american-russian war planes. The rapid pace of development has made china, along with the united states, a leader in the field of jet engines. It's over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over。
It is worth adding that the technological evolution around d-20 has not stopped at the dynamic. Double-seating-20s has been included in the active complement as the first of the world's five generations of invisible warplanes with double-seat configurations; and a number of new concepts, such as loyalist aircraft, air warfare ai, are advancing simultaneously. On the larger coordinates, the layers of chinese air forces are becoming more complete as shaping-35 gradually spreads in the navy and air force sequences. As for the prototype of the six-generation aircraft that sung fei and shen flew at the end of december 2024, this is the beginning of another longer story。
The 15-year-old propeller curve, from a short lift of only 10 minutes on the runway on january 11, 2011, to the beginning of 2026, when a man with yellow underpainted paint took off with "china's heart". Over the years, the overseas media have constantly revised their estimates from "not until 2020" to "to break thousands by 2030", which is just one thing: what they underestimate is never just an airplane, but the energy that a whole industrial system can explode with long-term input。
The question of how to get to this point may continue to be asked. But at least for the chinese air force, which defends this sky, the answer is no longer a mystery。
