There is a competition for loyal wingman type apparently and FH-97A is a contender.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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There is a competition for loyal wingman type apparently and FH-97A is a contender.
Do we have know any other loyal wingman drone contenders?
I think GJ-11 and FH-97A are not mutually exclusive for J-20 loyal wingman program.
GJ-11 for ground attack, FH-97A for air superiority.
are modern uavs capable of air superiority against a peer adversary?
One major downside for FH-97A is that it doesn’t seem to carry a radar. It’ll be limited to WVR attack for the foreseeable future.
They are part of a network of air to air platforms that contribute to air superiority.
Individually, probably no current A2A UCAV is effective against a 5th gen fighter since the fighter essentially has better avionics, more weapons, more fuel, at least similar kinematic performance, if not better, and similar stealthiness (maybe a bit worse depending on the UCAV).
The thing is though, UCAVs even A2A ones, are not designed to individually take on the role of contesting or maintaining air superiority. So all airforces that use and will use UCAVs as an incorporated part of the network of platforms, are going to be operating them with command from nearby human operators of those UCAVs. US and China are the only ones with any hope of bringing out truly autonomous or semi autonomous UCAVs. Both nations have been dropping hints they are testing that with both stating in recent years that their autonomous UCAV programs (read of that as you will) are exhibiting superior performance to human pilots in some unspecified way/s.
Stealthy UCAVs are so versatile though. I mean they can be used in ambush tactics due to considerably smaller visual and heat signatures. Possibly also smaller radar signatures if they are manufactured to those tolerances (but come with higher costs and manufacturing complexity).
None of the known and shown A2A or multirole UCAVs look like they can pull anywhere near as well as fighters. Which really seem strange given that they are unmanned and should be ideal for high Gs. None of them have the powerplants to really give manned fighters a challenge wrt thrust:weight. I'm hoping the Dark Sword is a dogfighting, proper A2A UCAV. I know, we haven't got any indication the Dark Sword program is aimed for actual service but surely PLAAF would have high end, high performance UCAV programs that are proper A2A candidates rather than the pretty lame low end "loyal wingmans" that are a dime a dozen and all look reasonably similar from India to Russia.
A high performance A2A UCAV is exactly the kind of UCAV that makes sense. Only Russia is open about theirs but they've gone with a bomber/recon/strike drone style flying wing (and not a 6th gen fighter looking one that is supposed to be able to turn well). I think we can be confident that both the US and China have high performance UCAVs close to service that are simply kept confidential since these shake up the doctrines a lot more than small loyal wingman drones. It just makes sense to develop that before the low tier UCAVs. Unless they've worked out the attrition rates and flexibility actually put low tier UCAVs as superior combat platforms compared to something like the displayed Dark Sword concept.
Edit: Turkey's MIUS program seem to be aiming for a proper high tier A2A UCAV similar to Russia's Hunter. At least their respective sizes are several times greater than the Loyal Wingman stuff from Tibet to Alaska. Given that the US and China have about 100 times the resources to throw at the problem and actually have more of an arguable "need" for a high tier A2A UCAV, it is quite simple to conclude that the US and China would have at least explored the idea if not worked out platforms in secrecy.
The J-20S is there to have a human operator control some ... craft. Sure there's a possibility that J-20S is also/ exclusively a EW platform for a 5th gen but come on with all the hints everyone knows it's there to be a human in the loop with minimal delay in control signal for some A2A UCAVs. The J-20S is ready. Some parts of that equation are hidden from the public.
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I have yet to see any evidence that any of the FH projects will go into service with PLAAF. It's probably a project aimed for the export market. I would think that any PLAAF loyal wingman project would be carried out by CAC or SAC. SAC has GJ11. Maybe we will see a loyal wingman from CAC soon.
I think that similar to self-driving cars, UCAVs would also have their own generation classification.
It would start from UCAVs with limited capabilities and are still heavily reliant on commands from the ground or manned aerial units, to the UCAVs that are fully capable of conducting missions and orders fully autonomously, then further towards UCAVs that are able to command and collaborat their own squadrons of UCAVs across networks of forces with limited or no human inputs.
It would be a step-by-step climb upwards.
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