Since the beginning of the new century, the development of China's fighter field has entered the fast lane, and in recent years, the J-10C, J-16, and J-20, known as the "Three Musketeers," have emerged, becoming the core of the air force's new quality combat forces. Since 2015, the total number of these three fighters in the Air Force has reached about 500, which is the most powerful air force in the world after the US Air Force. In comparison, China's naval aviation land-based troops are somewhat "dull", after receiving the last batch of J-11B around 2016, there has been no new batch of fighters, the number of equipment of the third and a half and fourth generation fighters is "zero", and the newly installed fighters have a 500:0 situation compared to the Air Force, although the size of the Navy's land-based aviation is limited, but such a ratio also seems to show its embarrassing position.
The J-20 currently only serves in the Air Force
In fact, the Air Force has long been ahead of HNA in the field of fighters. When the Air Force acquired the Russian Su-27SK heavy fighter in 1992, HNA still only had J-7 and J-8 fighters, and it was not until 2004 that it received 24 Russian-made Su-30MK2 multi-role fighters, which entered the field of third-generation aircraft a full 12 years later than the Air Force. After the domestic J-10 and J-11 fighters matured in performance, they were also given priority to supplying the air force, and HNA did not obtain the first batch of J-10AH and J-11BH until 2012 (HNA will add an "H" after the equipment number commonly used in the sea and air), once again 4 years late. Judging from the current situation, HNA's latest "postponement" may be longer, not only will it not get the J-20, J-16, and J-10C in a short period of time, but it may even never be equipped.
HNA is equipped with Su-30MK2 and J-10AH
The reason why HNA has not been able to equip the J-20 is very simple, that is, the Air Force's demand for the J-20 is too urgent. At present, the surrounding South Korea, Japan, Australia and even Singapore have ordered the United States F-35 stealth fighter, of which Japan ordered 147, currently arrived (assembled by Japan) about 28 (crashed one), South Korea ordered 40, arrived about 36 (all expected to be delivered by the end of the year), Australia ordered 100, arrived about 48, Singapore ordered 4, has not yet arrived. In this way, a total of 291 aircraft have been ordered from the four countries mentioned above, and about 112 have been shipped. If one adds an F-35 squadron (24) deployed by the United States at the Iwakuni base in Japan, as well as the six F-35Bs carried by the USS American amphibious assault ship and 10 F-35Cs carried by the USS Carl Vinson, the Chinese Air Force is already under pressure from more than 150 F-35s.
Japan is the Asian country that purchases the largest number of F-35s
Over the next 10 years, the United States is expected to deploy five F-35 squadrons (120) at Iwakuni, Kadena, and Misawa in Japan, and four F-35 squadrons (96) at osan and Gunsan bases in South Korea. By then, the Number of F-35s assembled by the United States and its allies around us will reach about 550. Such an astonishing scale has put unprecedented pressure on the Chinese Air Force, so the Air Force urgently needs a large number of J-20s to provoke the girder of the air supremacy and hedge the threat of the F-35. Although Cheng Fei has started a number of pulsating production lines to produce all-out production, the current number of J-20 about 100 aircraft is obviously not enough, at least to reach about 300 aircraft to barely enough, 500 to be called more than enough. Therefore, it is unlikely that HNA will be able to share the J-20 in this case.
The F-35B has been commissioned in bulk on U.S. amphibious assault ships
In addition, from the analysis of the duties and tasks of the arms, HNA may not intend to equip the J-20. There is no doubt that HNA is eager to develop the next generation of stealth carrier-based aircraft, but at present, the possibility of the J-20 on board is not very likely. Therefore, if the land-based unit of HNA is equipped with the J-20, then the two fighter units of the same HNA will be equipped with two different stealth fighters, which is difficult to bear the logistical pressure brought by the already small scale of HNA. More importantly, the Navy has invested a lot of money in recent years to build heavy equipment such as domestic new aircraft carriers, strategic nuclear submarines and 055 destroyers, and whether it can have enough funds to purchase the J-20, which costs nearly $100 million, is also a debatable thing. Therefore, in the short term, the possibility of HNA equipping the J-20 is unlikely, and in the long run, there is no doubt that stealth carrier-based aircraft are more attractive.
Simulation of the domestic stealth carrier-based aircraft flying by and ejecting aircraft carriers
In contrast, HNA is less likely to equip the J-10C. As a single-engine fighter, the most prominent advantage of the J-10C is that it is flexible and low cost, which can solve the problem of the small number of three-and-a-half generation fighters in China, which is also an important reason why the Air Force is still equipped with J-10C on a large scale after the J-20 is in service. However, for HNA, its equipment scale is small, so it is not as sensitive to the cost as the Air Force, but it pays more attention to the performance of the single aircraft, and the defects of the J-10C bomb load and range will be further amplified in the view of HNA. More importantly, although the reliability level of domestic aero engines is not low today, there is still a significant gap between twin-engine and single-engine fighters, after all, twin-engine fighters still have the power to return even if one engine fails, and single-engine fighters are more fierce and less lucky; and the main combat airspace of HNA is located above the sea, and the marine environment faced by the faulty aircraft is extremely harsh, which is completely different from the situation faced by the Air Force.
Single-shot, range, bomb and other factors make it difficult for the J-10 to enter the "legal eye" of Hainan Airlines.
When a single-engine fighter fails on land, it can choose to land or parachute to escape, as long as the pilot can land safely, there is basically no danger to life, while the sea is completely different. Since the fighter jet age, there are only a few examples of successful forced landings at sea, and as for parachuting, although the naval fighters of various countries are equipped with corresponding positioning and life support equipment, the time that pilots survive at sea is still measured in hours. Not long ago, a MH-60S helicopter of the US Navy crashed into the sea, and in the case of someone witnessing the location of the crash and immediately dispatching helicopter rescue, 5 of the 6 people on board were still unaccounted for, and they were finally identified as dead. After the fighter pilot parachutes, his positioning equipment is subject to the size and accuracy of the equipment, the arrival time of the rescue troops, as well as the ocean currents, sea conditions and other factors, and the probability of being successfully rescued can be imagined.
U.S. Navy MH-60S helicopter
Because of this, the sea astronauts did not like single-engine fighters, although in 2012 received an aviation regiment of the J-10AH, but also out of the extraordinary thirst for third-generation fighters at that time, the extreme lack of air combat capabilities, the forced choice. In fact, these more than 20 J-10AH are also mainly used for land training, which also proves the Navy's hidden concerns about the risk of single-engine fighter training at sea. Moreover, the situation of the J-10C is different from that of the J-20, in the case that the Air Force is currently equipped with nearly 200 J-10C, Chengfei has sufficient production capacity to provide HNA with J-10C fighters, but the performance shortcomings and single-engine design of the J-10C itself restrict the procurement of HNA.
The J-10C equipped by the Air Force has become a scale
The J-16 faces the most peculiar situation. In the early years, the purpose of HNA's establishment was to target sea and air threats from the direction of the sea, and the separation of command and dispatch with the Air Force was conducive to exerting initiative, but in recent years, HNA has gradually transformed into an air force with anti-ship power as the core, and although it has served in the J-10AH and J-11BH air superiority fighters in recent years, it also exists as an escort fighter for anti-ship missile carriers such as the J-7 and H-6. In fact, HNA has always been more inclined to equip the Su-30MK2 multi-role fighter to achieve the purpose of simultaneously performing anti-ship and air superiority tasks and simplifying the type and quantity of equipment, which is also the fundamental reason why the Su-30MK2 equipment has always been loved by HNA for more than a decade. Therefore, for the J-16, which can be called the "enhanced version of the Su-30MKK", HNA should be very much looking forward to it in theory, but there are some changes in fact.
HNA has always been in love with the Su-30MK2
On the surface, the Air Force's demand for the J-16 is very urgent, after all, the J-16 is currently the second domestic fighter in terms of comprehensive performance after the J-20, and its excellent large range and large bomb load advantage are indispensable external strike forces of the Air Force. Although Shen Fei has also built a pulse production line for the J-16 in recent years, it is still far from the needs of the Air Force. Therefore, although there have been repeated rumors in China that the J-16 is in service in the Navy, it has not been officially confirmed so far. Considering that the J-16 has been produced in small batches for more than 6 years, even if the demand for the Air Force is large, it should be no problem to allocate part of the production capacity to HNA. Therefore, the inside story may not be that HNA cannot get the J-16, but that in HNA's future planning, there may not be a J-16 position.
The J-16 has also been produced for many years
The Marine-based Aviation Corps is originally a rather special branch of the military, among the major countries in the world, only China and Russia are larger and equipped with more advanced fighters. Essentially because both of these face a powerful threat from sea to land from the United States, the Marine-based Aviation actually exists as an anti-ship, or anti-carrier force. The development speed of the Chinese navy in recent years is very fast, especially in the field of aircraft carriers, and it has come to the forefront of the world in just 10 years, with the material foundation and experience accumulation of going to the open sea. Coupled with the increasingly sharp anti-aircraft carrier capability of domestic anti-ship ballistic missiles, the anti-aircraft carrier role of the marine-based aviation has gradually weakened, and the remaining tasks have a great overlap with the air force, so it is likely that in the future, the naval aviation will all turn to the aircraft carrier and retain only a small number of anti-submarine aircraft or patrol aircraft. Of course, this will take time to achieve.
Naval aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft are beginning to take shape
The Navy currently has a total of two ski-jump aircraft carriers, theoretically can carry up to 60 J-15 carrier-based aircraft, counting the training and reserve forces on land, the total size should be about 80. Considering that the J-15 is a multi-role heavy fighter, only about 180 is enough to undertake the tasks originally undertaken by the land-based forces, and with the maneuverability of the aircraft carrier, it is far beyond the flexibility. According to the aircraft carrier construction plan and schedule, about 2028 to 2030, the Navy will be equipped with two catapult aircraft carriers, when the number of fixed-wing carriers carried by the four aircraft carriers can reach about 150. In other words, around 2030, the naval aviation basically has a completely carrier-based foundation, and it is likely that HNA will not move when the third and fourth generations of fighters are reloaded for this reason.
The J-15 is the Navy's only carrier-based aircraft
In this less than 10 years, even if HNA does not supplement new fighters, it can completely transform the active J-11BH and J-11BSH (two-seat trainer type) to achieve the effect of ensuring combat effectiveness, after all, HNA's current more than 80 J-11BH series fighters are early production models, most of which can only be airborne, and do not have the ability to fight against the ground and sea. Theoretically, as long as the J-11BH is simply upgraded, the radar's ground-to-sea search capabilities are strengthened, and its avionics equipment and data interfaces are improved, at a small cost, it is enough to reach the current level of the J-15 and have a certain multi-purpose combat capability, although it does not enter the category of three-and-a-half generation fighters, but the enhanced anti-ship capability can also meet the needs of HNA. The transformation of the J-11BSH can be further deepened, and it is a practice to take into account the cost and combat effectiveness by changing the phased array radar and other ways to get closer to the J-16 to ensure a certain high-end combat strength. In fact, the Air Force has begun to improve the existing J-11B, and spawned the "J-11BG", which has not yet been officially recognized, so the improvement of the J-11BH does not have any problems in technology, and the resulting improvement in combat effectiveness is enough to support the needs of HNA in the next 10 years.
The J-11BS has great potential for improvement
In the past few decades, HNA has always been a relatively awkward role, and its aviation resources are far from the Air Force, which to a large extent restricts its combat capabilities, but in view of the fact that the early fleet was small and the coastal defense pressure was great, HNA had to maintain a certain scale, and it was difficult to say that it was helpless. Under the current vigorous situation of the Navy gradually moving towards the open sea and the ocean, it is difficult for the Navy's land-based aviation to keep up with the pace of the Navy's advance, and it is also foreseeable to further find its final position and belonging after completing its historical mission. At present, after years of delay, the possibility of J-10C entering the Navy is basically gone, and the possibility of J-20 and J-16 is not very likely, which makes the J-11BH that entered HNA 10 years ago as a cutting-edge equipment likely to become the last batch of fighters in the Marine-based Aviation Corps, and the time when the J-11BH is finally retired is likely to be the moment when the naval aviation completely goes to the high sea and takes off!