Key Points and Summary: China has unveiled two prototype sixth-generation stealth fighters, potentially surpassing the J-20. The Chengdu design is notable for its large size, tailless configuration, and unique three-engine setup. The Shenyang prototype appears smaller and more traditional.
-These reveals highlight China’s rapid advancements in military aviation and raise questions about the future of U.S. sixth-generation fighter programs.
-While impressive, key “sixth-generation” characteristics remain unseen, and it’s unclear if these prototypes will mature into operational designs.
China Stuns with Two New Stealth Fighter Prototypes: A Closer Look
For observers of Chinese military aviation, Christmas came spectacularly (if a day late) this year when abundant photos and videos of the first test flight of a heretofore unseen Chinese stealth aircraft emerged on social media this Wednesday.
Then, a few hours later, video footage of a second purportedly sixth-generation stealth jet prototype emerged linked to the rival Shenyang Aircraft Corporation.
China’s Big Stealth Fighter Reveal: Two Warplanes in One Day?
Chinese officials may have intended the aircraft’s de facto (though unofficial) unveilings to coincide with the birthday of Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong.
Chengdu’s arrowhead-shaped manned stealth jet was recorded off from the headquarters of Chengdu Aircraft Corporation in Sichuan province, followed by a two-seat J-20S stealth fighter (itself the world’s only two-seat stealth fighter), which undoubtedly assisted in collecting test flight data. The serial number J36001 stenciled on the aircraft leads to speculation it may be designated the J-36.
Chinese 6th Gen Fighter spotted flying under broad day light
This is the real deal, it’s actually happening OMG‼️‼️‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/UYzWcazgLX
— Fighterman_FFRC (@Fighterman_FFRC) December 26, 2024
The side-by-side flight suggests this prototype is likely considerably larger than the J-20, which is a relatively large fighter at nearly 70 feet in length.
The purported Shenyang design, seen escorted by a Flanker-based J-16 jet, also is a diamond-shaped tailless configuration. However, it seems smaller, lighter, and more traditionally fighter-like with a partially swept wing.
While the tailless configuration of both aircraft undoubtedly is aimed at surpassing the J-20 in stealth, Chengdu’s prototype is particularly distinguished by its three jet intakes—two conventionally underslung on the lower fuselage, boosted by a third inlet on the aircraft spine mid-fuselage. No other jet fighters use this configuration.
— OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) December 26, 2024
Other observable characteristics include tricycle landing gears, each with double wheels (indicative of heavy weight), engine inlets shaped to reduce radar-cross-section, and a very wide fuselage and vertically bulged mid-section, suggesting it could carry a lot of weapons and fuel internally.
The visible canopy indicates it’s a manned aircraft, but whether it has one or two seats remains unclear. Numerous flight control surfaces are also visible along the rear wing, undoubtedly used to compensate for the absence of tail control surfaces. The engine exhaust outlets appear top-mounted to reduce visibility to infrared sensors from standard angles.
What Is China’s Stealth Fighter PR Strategy?
While there’s little doubt Chinese officials intentionally intended the ‘leak’ imagery of the two prototype aircraft, the aircraft’s designation and their relationship to China’s military R&D programs is unclear. However, most believe they’re products of China’s sixth-generation stealth fighter program to build a successor to the J-20. By 2022-2023, abundant concept art had emerged on social media suggesting this program was underway, including concept art of a diamond-shaped (albeit twin-engine) fighter somewhat reminiscent of the design seen flying this December.
Zhuhai Air Show 🇨🇳
6th Gen Fighter Aircraft Concept
PLAAF Loves Tailless Jet Design pic.twitter.com/hyTPqZlHGT— David Wang (@Nickatgreat1220) November 6, 2022
Chengdu’s trijet prototype has also fostered speculation it spawned from China’s JH-XX program aimed at developing a supersonic stealth regional bomber with a range of 1,000+ miles reportedly explored in the 2010s.
This jives with the aircraft’s considerable size, but JH-XX was associated with the rival Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, which showed off the seemingly lighter prototype today. It’s also possible the two jets could be intended purely as demonstrators to inform future aircraft design rather than for direct maturation into operational designs.
China’s Stealth Fighters: Why Three Engines and No Tail?
Tailless design concepts are the zeitgeist in military aerospace but tricky to execute. Removing an aircraft’s tail stabilizers helps significantly reduce radar cross-section and drag and weight—but at the cost of making a plane less stable and generally more challenging to control.
However, modern computerized fly-by-wire flight control systems can help coordinate differential use of wing flaps and engine thrust to execute maneuvers and perform automatic adjustments to ensure stable flight. But calibrating flight control systems for new aircraft is a process, not a one-and-done one, so Wednesday’s test flight likely gathered data to fine-tune the jet’s control software.
The Chengdu prototype’s trijet configuration is more surprising, as the fewer engines needed to produce the desired thrust, the better. Each extra engine adds substantially to weight, structural complications, and procurement and operating costs while worsening fuel economy.
Third engines do have some modest benefits by adding redundancy in the event of engine failures (common early in the Jet Age) and, if tail-mounted, can shift the center of gravity rearwards, improving fuel efficiency and engineering options at the cost of added instability.
China Sixth-Generation Fighter NGAD. Image Credit: Social Media Screenshot.
Ultimately, engineers opt for trijets when they want more thrust than available twin-engine configurations can produce—perhaps, in this case, necessitated by the prototype’s large size/weight.
Most trijets are older, often retired civilian airliners and business jets, like the Boeing 727 and DC-10 as more powerful modern turbofans obviated the need for a third engine. However, some continue to serve, including the MD-11 and Tu-154 airliners, militarized derivatives of such aircraft, and the still-in-production Dassault Falcon business trijet. Setting aside a few flying prototypes like the Martin XB-51 bomber, there have been no trijet combat aircraft save for the Soviet Yak-38 Forger jump jet (and succeeding Yak-41 prototypes), which had one main turbofan and two downward-canted lift-turbojets used for vertical-takeoff capability.
Some recent notable trijet projects include the tiny supersonic XB-1 stealth demonstrator devised by Coloardo-based Boom Technology and two unmanned Boeing X-48B trijets designed to test blended-wing body (BWB) design concept, which were test flown and progressively evolved 2007-2013. BWB designs attempt to find an advantageous halfway point between a flying wing’s aerodynamic and stealth efficiencies with the capacious fuselage of conventional cargo/passenger aircraft.
Is China Leap-Frogging U.S. Sixth-Generation Fighter Development?
The ‘J-36’s’ flight implies impressive turn-around time for both Shenyang and Chengdu corporations, have been producing J-20 and J-35 stealth fighters while also testing new subvariants.
However, the U.S. NGAD program for a sixth-gen fighter also resulted in a flying test aircraft (not yet seen by the public) in 2020. And yet, entering 2025, the Air Force has declined to accept any of the proposed NGAD designs over excessive price and says it may cancel NGAD altogether and focus on buddy drones instead.
China’s White Emperor 6th Generation Fighter Mockup. Image Credit: X Screenshot.
While that shows U.S. sixth-generation fighters are in trouble, it also highlights that digital design tools and testing methods are speeding up the development of prototype aircraft—as well the reality that building a few prototypes/demonstrators is very different from completing R&D of mass-production aircraft with integrated mission systems.
When evaluating the new Chinese aircraft, it’s also important to remember that many key ‘sixth-generation’ characteristics are fundamentally under the hood. The laundry list of proposed capabilities includes:
-sophisticated flight computers and networked open-architecture mission systems (ie. easily reconfigured/upgraded) also benefit from AI to reduce pilot task load
-high quality yet cheaper-to-sustain radar absorbent materials
-Support for controlling/cooperating with loyal wingman combat drones ergonomically using a combination of AI-powered autonomy and ergonomic controls (such as voice command)
-powerful yet discrete long-range sensors
-advanced propulsion (preferably a combined-cycle turbofan able to reconfigure internally to optimize -low- and supersonic-speed performance).
These could enable supersonic cruising without afterburners and generate more electricity for more powerful radars and hammers, next-gen computers, and even perhaps laser/microwave weapons.
Though not ‘hi-tech,’ there’s now an emphasis on greater range and payload due to the long distances a Pacific conflict would involve
How credibly can China deliver such next-gen systems? There’s evidence that China is already strong in developing computers, sensors (particularly AESA-class radars), and long-range missiles.
By contrast, the Chinese industry has spent decades playing catch-up on producing high-performance turbofans—though by 2025, its indigenous turbofans seem finally close to replacing imported Russian designs.
Has a Regional Stealth Bomber Finally Emerged?
In 2018, a Pentagon report on China’s military mentioned in passing that in addition to Beijing’s program to build a subsonic H-20 flying wing strategic bomber, there was a second stealth bomber aimed at developing a supersonic regional-range fighter bomber. Such an aircraft could be a stealthy spin on the Cold War American F-111 and Soviet Su-24 swing-wing supersonic bombers and the more recent Su-34 and Chinese JH-7 fighter bombers.
H-20 Stealth Bomber. Image Credit: Artist Rendering Chinese Internet.
Currently, no supersonic stealth bombers exist, though, in the 2000s, the U.S. Air Force seriously considered procuring an FB-22 ‘Bomber Raptor’ regional bomber based on the F-22 stealth fighter. A regional bomber would offer China’s military means to attack far-flung U.S. military bases (Okinawa, Guam) or carrier task forces attempting to help defend Taiwan from invasion. A fast stealth bomber might be better suited for specific missions than a slow H-20, lacking strong fallback options if detected.
However, the entire fast-bomber/fighter dichotomy may have merged, given that evolving theories in air warfare prioritize range, stealth, and weapons capacity over maximal maneuverability. Perhaps Chengdu’s design is meant to be both fighter and supersonic bomber after the U.S. Air Force weighs how its non-supersonic B-21 stealth bombers might also play an air superiority role in future conflicts.
Regardless of the intended role, the tailless prototype looks impressive and hints at innovative and rapid project work in China’s military aviation sector that could eventually broaden China’s ability to project airpower over greater distances, even when facing air defense and patrolling enemy fighters.
Besides the propaganda boost for China, the prototype seems likely to spur further discussion in the U.S. on whether the Air Force is wrong to give up on a sixth-generation fighter (which the service can’t afford under the current budget due to the costs of rebuilding the service’s nuclear missile silos) or is right to focus exclusively on teaming up its current stealth aircraft with loyal wingman drones.
About the Author: Sebastien A. Roblin
Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com, War is Boring and 19FortyFive, where he is Defense-in-Depth editor. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.
