PLA Air Force news, pics and videos

A.Man · Sep 29, 2025

This is a Lyman's post:

As of mid -2025, the East University (Should Be Dongda, Big East = China) Air Force is equipped with AESA radar fighters:

->J-10C ~ 280
->J-16~400
->J-11BG ~ 150?
->J-20/A/S ~450
->J-35A ~ 10

A total of about 1300

According to the latest data in 2025, the U.S. Air Force's AESA-equipped fighter jets include about 185 F-22, about 500 F-35A, about 218 F-15E (mostly upgraded), about 8 F-15EX, and about 150 AESA-equipped F-16, totaling about 1060.

The total number of tactical aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard has long been surpassed by the Dongda (Big East=China) Air Force. Now even the total number of AESA-equipped aircraft is less than the Dongda by 200, and the gap is still widening at a rate of more than 100 per year. The quality gap between the two tactical aircraft will be growing.

Not to mention that most of the airborne AESA in Dongda are digital array gallium nitride active phased array radars, which are one to two generations ahead of the airborne AESA of the US Air Force. The U.S. Air Force currently does not have a single fighter jet with gallium nitride AESA, all gallium arsenide AESA.

With CUHK's leading PL-15, PL-16, PL-17 air-to-air missiles, and far-ahead early warning aircraft, the U.S. Air Force fighters would end up much worse than the Indian Air Force's Rafale during a real air war between the two sides.

ACuriousPLAFan · Sep 29, 2025

A.Man said:
This is a Lyman's post:

As of mid -2025, the East University Air Force is equipped with AESA radar fighters:

->J-10C ~ 280
->J-16~400
->J-11BG ~ 150?
->J-20/A/S ~450
->J-35A ~ 10

A total of about 1300

According to the latest data in 2025, the U.S. Air Force's AESA-equipped fighter jets include about 185 F-22, about 500 F-35A, about 218 F-15E (mostly upgraded), about 8 F-15EX, and about 150 AESA-equipped F-16, totaling about 1060.

The total number of tactical aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard has long been surpassed by the Dongda (Big East=China) Air Force. Now even the total number of AESA-equipped aircraft is less than the Dongda by 200, and the gap is still widening at a rate of more than 100 per year. The quality gap between the two tactical aircraft will be growing.

Not to mention that most of the airborne AESA in Dongda are digital array gallium nitride active phased array radars, which are one to two generations ahead of the airborne AESA of the US Air Force. The U.S. Air Force currently does not have a single fighter jet with gallium nitride AESA, all gallium arsenide AESA.

With CUHK's leading PL-15, PL-16, PL-17 air-to-air missiles, and far-ahead early warning aircraft, the U.S. Air Force fighters would end up much worse than the Indian Air Force's Rafale during a real air war between the two sides.

I've seen the original article.

Is this translated using Google Translate or AI? Because the translation is quite off.

tamsen_ikard · Sep 30, 2025

A.Man said:
This is a Lyman's post:

As of mid -2025, the East University (Should Be Dongda, Big East = China) Air Force is equipped with AESA radar fighters:

->J-10C ~ 280
->J-16~400
->J-11BG ~ 150?
->J-20/A/S ~450
->J-35A ~ 10

A total of about 1300

According to the latest data in 2025, the U.S. Air Force's AESA-equipped fighter jets include about 185 F-22, about 500 F-35A, about 218 F-15E (mostly upgraded), about 8 F-15EX, and about 150 AESA-equipped F-16, totaling about 1060.

The total number of tactical aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard has long been surpassed by the Dongda (Big East=China) Air Force. Now even the total number of AESA-equipped aircraft is less than the Dongda by 200, and the gap is still widening at a rate of more than 100 per year. The quality gap between the two tactical aircraft will be growing.

Not to mention that most of the airborne AESA in Dongda are digital array gallium nitride active phased array radars, which are one to two generations ahead of the airborne AESA of the US Air Force. The U.S. Air Force currently does not have a single fighter jet with gallium nitride AESA, all gallium arsenide AESA.

With CUHK's leading PL-15, PL-16, PL-17 air-to-air missiles, and far-ahead early warning aircraft, the U.S. Air Force fighters would end up much worse than the Indian Air Force's Rafale during a real air war between the two sides.

Nicely fits my estimates I posted couple of days ago. The only surprise is the number of J-10c. I thought they stopped J-10c production for PLA atleast, so it should be fixed at 250 for the PLA. But if they have added more, that will be something new and surprising.

Converting 150 J-11B to BG is also a big positive step.

Tomboy · Sep 30, 2025

A.Man said:
This is a Lyman's post:

As of mid -2025, the East University (Should Be Dongda, Big East = China) Air Force is equipped with AESA radar fighters:

->J-10C ~ 280
->J-16~400
->J-11BG ~ 150?
->J-20/A/S ~450
->J-35A ~ 10

A total of about 1300

According to the latest data in 2025, the U.S. Air Force's AESA-equipped fighter jets include about 185 F-22, about 500 F-35A, about 218 F-15E (mostly upgraded), about 8 F-15EX, and about 150 AESA-equipped F-16, totaling about 1060.

The total number of tactical aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard has long been surpassed by the Dongda (Big East=China) Air Force. Now even the total number of AESA-equipped aircraft is less than the Dongda by 200, and the gap is still widening at a rate of more than 100 per year. The quality gap between the two tactical aircraft will be growing.

Not to mention that most of the airborne AESA in Dongda are digital array gallium nitride active phased array radars, which are one to two generations ahead of the airborne AESA of the US Air Force. The U.S. Air Force currently does not have a single fighter jet with gallium nitride AESA, all gallium arsenide AESA.

With CUHK's leading PL-15, PL-16, PL-17 air-to-air missiles, and far-ahead early warning aircraft, the U.S. Air Force fighters would end up much worse than the Indian Air Force's Rafale during a real air war between the two sides.

Lyman is basically a “鸡血” poster, unless he is backed with a source, his posts are BS

Blitzo · Oct 1, 2025

Tomboy said:
Lyman is basically a “鸡血” poster, unless he is backed with a source, his posts are BS

That is absolutely true.

That said, the numbers thrown there are not entirely unreasonable although probably on the high end of the confidence interval for certain types.

Totoro · Oct 1, 2025

And the US comparison is completely unnecessary. If one must do such comparisons, better to compare total PLA aircraft with total US DoD aircraft.

Blitzo · Oct 1, 2025

Totoro said:
And the US comparison is completely unnecessary. If one must do such comparisons, better to compare total PLA aircraft with total US DoD aircraft.

I mean, I almost feel like commenting on the US comparison as unnecessary, is itself unnecessary, because it's dignifying the topic at all, and will naturally lead to a discussion of what actually constitutes the best way of comparing PLA aircraft with US aircraft in a relevant force on force manner.

There's a reason I avoided it and just pretended I didn't see it.

by78 · 2025-10-14T03:13:51-0400

A paper on weapon separation from an internal weapons bay at high mach numbers (up to mach 4). The full text is contained in quotes to save screen real estate.

Abstract: The internal weapon may exhibit distinct separation characteristics due to the greater shear layer and shock wave of the high Mach number (Ma > 2) weapon bay, as well as distinct flow characteristics compared to the subsonic, transonic, and supersonic weapon bays. In this paper, using the unstructured hybrid mesh flow solver NNWFlow Star, and based on the improved HLLE++ format and adaptive hybrid mesh technology established in the previous simulation for high Mach number cavity flow, the numerical simulations are used to compare and analyze the separation characteristics of the internal weapon at Ma=4 and Ma=2. The effects of different leading edge flow control measures such as annular plates, transverse columns, serrations and cylindrical arrays on the separation characteristics of high Mach number (Ma=4) weapons are investigated to provide guidance for the design of safe separation schemes for internal weapons at high Mach number. The findings show that at a high Mach number (Ma=4), the weapon bay's distinct flow characteristics and the shock wave's different shock angle at the leading edge of the weapon bay cause the internal weapon and weapon bay to have different channel effects at first and different shock interference during the separation process. As a result, the internal weapon's attitude angle and pitch moment at a high Mach number (Ma=4) differ from those at Ma=2. After the leading edge flow control measures are adopted, the rising trend of the positive pitching moment for internal weapons is weakened and the yaw angle is reduced, which is conducive to the safe separation of missiles.

PLA Air Force news, pics and videos

A.Man

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ACuriousPLAFan

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tamsen_ikard

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Tomboy

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Blitzo

General

Totoro

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Blitzo

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by78

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