This is interesting but totally not surprising.
Shilao and Yankee actually talked about this recently in context of US carrier pilots. PLA did subtlety approach those in civilian airline to try to tease out some details with particular focus on carrier deck operations. While they are of some help a lot of the time when you ask them what process was involved preping the aircraft they would just shrug and answer "don't know, it was waiting for me on the catapult when I got on deck".Military pilots usually become airline pilots after exiting service. Some of them probably work for Chinese airlines. Not surprising if the Chinese military did some background search and recruited some of them.
Lead story on BBC News website now:
Remember that JL10 that went down a few months back with both crew ejecting? One was a white dude and we were speculating as to his nationality. In light of this news he may have been a Brit, and the instructor rather than trainee.
Lots of people screaming about this on Twitter with calls of treason, etc., but seemingly there is no problem with the many, many ex UK mil who worked and still work for Saudi and other Gulf states.
Also I doubt the PLAAF is confining these efforts to RAF/RN, I suspect former IDF-AF aircrew will have been recruited with at least the tacit consent/willful blindness of the Israeli government (see J10 development for details and yes I know it's not a Lavi copy but the chief designer did spend quite a bit of time in China...).
They miss late-stage Qing Empire so much that they decided to become Qing themselves. And if late Qing is any indication once was dead their days are numbered.There is obviously very deep systemic rot within the country, with the ruling elite blowing billions of pounds on trivialities like Jubilees and yachts instead of warships, warplanes, and tanks.
Lead story on BBC News website now:
Remember that JL10 that went down a few months back with both crew ejecting? One was a white dude and we were speculating as to his nationality. In light of this news he may have been a Brit, and the instructor rather than trainee.
Lots of people screaming about this on Twitter with calls of treason, etc., but seemingly there is no problem with the many, many ex UK mil who worked and still work for Saudi and other Gulf states.
Also I doubt the PLAAF is confining these efforts to RAF/RN, I suspect former IDF-AF aircrew will have been recruited with at least the tacit consent/willful blindness of the Israeli government (see J10 development for details and yes I know it's not a Lavi copy but the chief designer did spend quite a bit of time in China...).