Has China Just Unveiled the World’s Stealthiest Fighter? Revolutionary Tailless Design Intensifies Sixth Generation Race

<p >Following China’s unveiling of an unmanned new stealth aircraft, which was seen flying alongside a <a href=" target="_blank">J-20 fifth generation fighter</a>, a growing consensus has formed among analysts that the fighter has fundamentally new features and is likely to be the world’s first from the sixth generation. A defining feature of the new aircraft, and one expected to be a requirement for the next generation, is a tailless configuration, which facilitates greater efficiency for sustained high speed cruise and significantly superior stealth. The J-20 was already considered to be among the world’s stealthiest fighters, rivalled only by the American F-35, with progress by Chinese industry in the field being clearly visible in the <a href=" target="_blank">major advances</a> made between batches and variants of the fifth generation fighter. Considering China’s strong standing in the field of stealth technologies, with other notable programs including the <a href=" target="_blank">FC-31 fighter </a>and <a href=" target="_blank">CH-7 unmanned bomber</a>, a tailless fighter aircraft developed by the country is highly likely to be the stealthiest in the world. </p><p ><img src=" title="New Tailless Fighter Tailed By J-20"></p><p >Developing a tailless aircraft presents particularly serious design challenges, with such airframes requiring particularly advanced flight control surfaces. Operationalising tailless aircraft was previously only possible for subsonic designs with highly restricted flight performances such as the <a href=" target="_blank">B-2 bomber</a> and <a href=" target="_blank">GJ-11 drone</a>, with the development of a tailless design while meeting the far more pressing flight performance requirements of a fighter being far more difficult to achieve. This is particularly true at higher speeds when thrust vectoring cannot be depended on to improve manoeuvrability. Each wing of the new fighter thus has five trailing edge control surfaces to help facilitate a high flight performance, including split flaps near the wingtips that are expected to provide yaw control which would usually be done by wing flaps. The competing American NGAD sixth generation fighter currently under development was long expected to have similar features, with the Chinese aircraft being the first seen operationalising them in flight. </p><p ><img src=" title="First Images of Chinese Next Generation Fighter"></p><p >The rapid rates of improvements to the J-20’s stealth capabilities made since the first serial production batch was delivered in 2016 were a major factor raising expectations that China’s first sixth generation fighters would boast revolutionary advances in stealth. Indeed, the head of the U.S. Air Combat Command General Mark Kelly in March 2022 projected not only an “exponential acceleration of processing power and sensing” on the aircraft, but also an “exponential reduction in [radar] signature.” While U.S. officials have long warned that China could be the first country in the world to field a sixth generation fighter, the surprise unveiling of such an aircraft in flight, whether it was<a href=" target="_blank"> developed as a strike fighter</a> or for air superiority roles, is a game changer for the balance of power in the Pacific on both the tactical and the strategic levels. With the United States still struggling to increase production of F-35s to required levels, or to achieve a fully operational status or <a href=" target="_blank">satisfactory availability rates</a>, China’s test flying of a sixth generation fighter raises the high possibility that the American jet will very soon be a generation behind the cutting edge. </p><p >Much of the information in this article was obtained from the recent book <a href=" >China's Stealth Fighter: The J-20 'Mighty Dragon' and the Growing Challenge to Western Air Dominance</a> by leading expert on Chinese combat aviation Abraham Abrams.</p>