J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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ok...his image in yellow primer is much clearer than ours..
This is my guesstimate. A warning that I don't know much about PLAAF structure and their base-brigade system or even that much about PLA in general since I'm in the West.
It's documented so far that J-20 are in 4 brigades [172nd, 176th, 1st, 9th].
If a brigade has around 24 + 6 spare aircraft then 30 x 4 = 120
So a range of 96 to 120 J-20s variants in service if assuming all brigades are fully equipped. (This was my answer)
Most public and US DOD are saying 150. Maybe they have some info on another brigade been formed for J-20s. Who knows.
I've heard some say 70 or even 60. Japan white paper said 48. Those number are quite low (woefully low especially for Japan). Considering how mature this frame is already, I find those numbers to be quite low. 70 might be plausible right now if assuming some of the brigades are not fully equipped.
172nd and 176th operate other planes beside the J-20, so you need to adjust the number to account for that.
Interesting. In that case 120 is a high number assumption then. 96 J-20s however assumes 24 per brigade.
So what's the avg number of frames per a fighter brigade in PLAAF in general?
Aren't both 172nd and 176th sort of like training/testing brigades?172nd and 176th operate other planes beside the J-20, so you need to adjust the number to account for that.
If that's the case then my assumption of both operating 24+ J-20s might be too high.
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Point is as mentioned by others already, that both the 176th and 172nd are training units with - at least as it seems - only one Dadui of 10 J-20s each. Only the 9th AB at Wuhu seems to have a full complement of three and as such eventually even up to 30 J-20s, The 1st at Anshan IMO has for the moment only one.
As such I think there are realistically 2 training daduis and 4 frontline fighter daduis or up to 60 J-20s in service, but surely not 120 or as the SCMP claims 150.
Plus a number for trials and testing, presumably.
Elaborate on this?
Didn't we have confirmation of WS-10 powered J-20 earlier this year on state media (after months of blurry images), which would suggest quite a few more aircraft than one lone J-20 at Anshan if they are willing to show it on CCTV.
Unless you mean "one dadui" in which case that is somewhat more plausible though i wouldn't be surprised if that had already grown by now.
I think he meant one dadui. There were two J-20s that participated in the flyby of the air academy in the CCTV report and I am sure @Deino is aware of that.
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