26 Oct 2017, 18:48
Worried, not really, yet at least. China used to match the US air power in numbers(just numbers not capability) because they had 1000 j-7's in service, now there down to 350, US has no 3rd gen aircraft as mainstay fighters anymore. If they decide to actually build these in mass, which they haven't show much signs of doing then it would become worrying. They aren't slowing down on 4th gen production aka J-10 and J-11B and J-16's are still trickling off the line. But in all this time, 14 years they have made ~300 J-10's, 20 years ~250 J-11 and in the last 5 years added another 75 new flanker variants. They haven't show in a long time that they like to buy expensive aircraft in large numbers. Even if they leave there LRIP speed of around 6 J-20's a year and go to 24 a year the USA will still be buying 90 F-35's a year and moving to 120+ at some point. They have 800+ old aircraft designs that need to be replaces, old interceptors based off the mig-21, newer(ish) interceptor with 70's tech, strike aircraft based off the mig-19. The US is replacing modernized 4th gens with 5 gen aircraft and any 4th gens staying in service into the 2020's is getting further modernized. The Chinese are replacing 3rd gen aircraft with semi-modernized 4th gens and now adding a single 5th gen type to the fleet that they might have 200 of in 7-10 years. The biggest threat china has, as with most things in there military, is numbers the numbers have gone down for them in aircraft the quality has gone up a bit but they are still behind the USA in both numbers and quality of the air fleet, one jet type isn't gonna change, especially with the F-35, PCA, F-X and F/A-XX.
Last edited by
geforcerfx on 26 Oct 2017, 23:28, edited 2 times in total.