Two major Chinese fighters, the J-11D and the J-20, appear to be competing for prioritised funding, despite the two platforms appearing to have distinctly differentiated missions, according to recent information provided to Jane’s by Chinese sources.
Some of the details of these programmes have come to light via a special documentary produced by the China Flight Test Establishment (CFTE) at Xi’an Yanliang airbase. The film was released to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the facility’s founding. The documentary showed close-up shots of the Shenyang J-11D still in factory primer and described it as “one of the latest aircraft to successfully pass through the programme of state flight testing”. Prominently displaying the J-11D in this manner is a clear signal that the programme has not been cancelled, as previously rumoured, and that production of this comprehensively modernised version of the J-11 will go ahead, according to Chinese industry sources.
The same sources had earlier stated that the combined costs of continued testing and finalising both the J-11D design and the configuration of the J-20 stealth fighter, which is designed and built by Shenyang’s rivals at Chengdu Aerospace in Sichuan Province, was partly why the advanced J-11 was believed to be on the cancellation list.
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