A Look Into China’s Training Regime For Elite J-20 Stealth Fighter Pilots: Ancient Qi Gong Techniques Prove Effective

<p >The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force has begun to use the baduanjin form of Qi Gong, an ancient exercise connected to Kung Fu and Tai Chi, to enhance the performance of its most elite fighter pilots operating the country’s<a href=" target="_blank"> J-20 stealth aircraft</a>. Aged between 23 and 48, pilots are trained in Qi Gong to harness the body’s Qi, a term for vital energy, which according to scientific data analysis has proven to be “remarkably effective.” A peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine revealed that, compared to pilots engaging solely in Western-style exercise, those practising Qi Gong saw an average increase of 15 percent in the thickness of their core muscle groups, including their back and waist muscles. This new form of training is considered particularly important as the demands of fighter operations have continued to grow, with the J-20 presenting pilots with quantities of information rivalled only by those of the American F-35. The additional demands of a high flight performance force pilots to endure much greater strains than those in F-35s due to the aircraft’s much higher speed, altitude ceiling and manoeuvrability levels. Both Chinese and Western sources have reported that Chinese fighter pilots today gain considerably more training hours than their American counterparts, with the discrepancy continuing to grow due primarily to<a href=" target="_blank"> low availability rates</a> within the American fleet. Chinese sources claim that the intensity of pilot training exceeds that of American fighter pilots. </p><p ><img src=" title="J-20 Fifth Generation Fighter "></p><p >The recently published<a href=" > first book on the J-20 program</a>: J-20 Mighty Dragon: Asia's First Stealth Fighter in the Era of China's Military Rise highlights: “The PLAAF was in the early 2020s estimated to be receiving more new fighters every year than any other air force – around 14–20 percent more than the USAF was receiving – with production increases leading the service to invest more in better and faster training programs for new generations of pilots to keep up. The Shijiazhuang Flight Academy in Hebei Province pioneered many of these changes.” The J-20 program has seen production surged to <a href=" >100-120 aircraft</a> per year – a scale rivalled only by that of the F-35 – which has necessitated an acceleration of pilot training while also forcing J-20 units to train for a broader range of missions beyond their primary mission of air-to-air combat. Plans to introduce ‘wingman’ drones to support J-20 operations have further increased the complexity, and force pilots to also act as airborne commanders for unmanned autonomous or semi-autonomous aircraft. The J-20 is considered by a growing number of analysts to be the world’s premier air superiority fighter – both as capabilities have improved rapidly and as the avionics of its American rival the F-22 Raptor have <a href=" >fallen further behind</a>. Having been designed for information-centric battlefields, and benefitting from significant incremental upgrades, a high level of technological aptitude is required to operate the aircraft.</p>