China’s J-36 Sixth-Generation Fighter Seen in New Test Flights as Prototype Evolves Rapidly
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New footage circulating on Chinese social media shows China’s J-36 sixth-generation fighter conducting fresh flight tests. The sighting adds weight to assessments that Beijing is pushing hard to operationalize a long-range air dominance platform for Indo-Pacific missions.
According to recent video footage circulating on Chinese social media, the country’s next-generation J-36 fighter appears to be entering a new, more intensive phase of flight testing. Additional clips recorded in October 2025 show the same tailless, stealthy airframe conducting further sorties, suggesting a deliberate acceleration of the test campaign rather than isolated demonstration flights. Taken together, these closely spaced test events indicate that Beijing is pushing hard to mature the J-36 and translate its prototype status into an operational capability as quickly as possible, with the clear objective of gaining a lead over its principal rival, the United States. Both nations are now locked in a strategic sprint for sixth-generation airpower, where the first air force to field a credible, combat-ready system will gain a decisive advantage in reach, survivability, and control of the battlespace. In such a competition, initial entry into service is not just a symbolic milestone but a tipping point that could reshape the air balance over the Indo-Pacific for years to come.Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
China’s J-36 is a large tailless sixth-generation stealth fighter prototype, built for long-range air dominance, deep strike, and command-and-control with advanced sensors and heavy internal weapons load (Picture source: Chinese social media).
The J-36 is unlike any fighter now in frontline service. Open imagery and specialist analysis describe a tailless, trijet flying wing with a stretched diamond double-delta wing, a broad chine running into the leading edge, and side-by-side seating under a wide canopy. Three engines are buried deep in the fuselage, fed by two lateral inlets and a prominent dorsal diverterless supersonic intake, maximizing internal volume for fuel and weapons while hiding hot engine faces from radar and infrared sensors. Multiple ventral bays, including a central cavity roughly 7.5 meters long, appear sized for oversized PL-17-class air-to-air missiles or heavy strike munitions, flanked by smaller side bays for shorter-range weapons.
The second prototype, seen in late October 2025, introduced redesigned serrated exhausts that resemble two-dimensional thrust-vectoring nozzles, revised DSI side intakes, and a new main landing gear layout, all within roughly ten months of the jet’s public debut. That pace suggests Chengdu and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force are iterating aggressively in hardware, trading some rear-aspect signature reduction for stability and maneuverability in a very unstable tailless configuration. Chinese research into ultra-fast turbine-disk cooling, reportedly linked to future J-36 engines, also points to an effort to sustain high thrust while lowering infrared emissions, a critical parameter for defeating modern air-to-air seekers.
Behind the shaping is an equally ambitious sensor and mission-system concept. Public sources already associate the J-36 with a large active electronically scanned array radar, a prominent electro-optical targeting system built into the nose chine, possible side-looking radar arrays, and enough electrical power for multispectral, wide-aperture sensing. Analysts describe the jet as an airborne cruiser, a long-range, supercruising platform that can launch large salvos of long-range missiles while acting as a command-and-control hub for other manned and unmanned aircraft. Combined with side-by-side crew seating and heavy onboard computing, the design looks optimized to manage loyal-wingman drones, coordinate beyond-visual-range engagements, and survive in a dense electronic-warfare environment rather than simply dogfight at short range.
The J-36 fits Beijing’s need for a deep-reach air-dominance and strike asset over the Indo-Pacific’s vast maritime spaces. With its volume for fuel and weapons, it is tailored to patrol far beyond China’s coastline, cueing and firing long-range anti-ship and anti-air missiles against U.S. carrier strike groups and forward air bases while remaining on station as a sensor node. In a future air war, such a platform could sit at the heart of a kill web, absorbing targeting data from satellites, shore-based radar, and drones, then pushing track-quality data to other shooters, complicating U.S. counter-stealth and beyond-visual-range tactics based on distributed sensing and cooperative engagement capability.
The program’s evolution has been unusually public for China. AVIC teased tailless sixth-generation concepts from 2018 onward; on December 26, 2024, a trijet flying-wing prototype appeared over Chengdu, escorted by a twin-seat J-20S, with “36” stenciled on the nose. Through spring 2025, successive videos showed the aircraft landing at Chengdu Aircraft Corporation’s test field, maneuvering with gear up, and later revealing its rear aspect and probable side-by-side cockpit. By October, a substantially re-worked second airframe was flying, and satellite imagery placed both J-36 and the smaller Shenyang tailless design at a remote test base near Lop Nur, a Chinese analogue to the U.S. Area 51.
PLAAF leaders now openly describe the J-36 as China’s interpretation of a sixth-generation aircraft, while U.S. Air Force officials have quietly acknowledged that it could reach initial operational capability ahead of American programs, even if U.S. systems ultimately field more advanced sensors and networking.
Across the Pacific, the benchmark is Boeing’s F-47, the crewed centerpiece of the U.S. Air Force Next Generation Air Dominance family. The F-47 is credited in official and industry briefings with a combat radius beyond 1,000 nautical miles, speeds above Mach 2, broadband low observability, including reduced infrared signature, and tight integration with Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, with the first example now in production and a first flight targeted for 2028.
The U.S. Navy’s carrier-based F/A-XX program, which will replace the F/A-18E/F, has finally cleared a major hurdle after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved moving to contractor selection in October 2025, following a bruising funding dispute that forced Congress to pour in over two billion dollars to keep it on track. F/A-XX is expected to mirror many J-36 and F-47 attributes, with longer range, higher endurance, and close teaming with uncrewed combat aircraft from the carrier air wing.
So who is ahead? In flight-test chronology, China clearly moved first: J-36 prototypes have been flying in public since late 2024, while the F-47 will not fly before 2028, and some assessments now argue that the U.S. is three to four years behind in sixth-generation fighter prototyping. Yet the United States still holds deep advantages in adaptive engines, combat networking, and the broader drone ecosystem underpinning NGAD. The more uncomfortable truth for Washington is that Beijing has learned to sprint from CAD model to flying metal with a speed the U.S. industrial base struggles to match.
Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.
Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.
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New footage circulating on Chinese social media shows China’s J-36 sixth-generation fighter conducting fresh flight tests. The sighting adds weight to assessments that Beijing is pushing hard to operationalize a long-range air dominance platform for Indo-Pacific missions.
According to recent video footage circulating on Chinese social media, the country’s next-generation J-36 fighter appears to be entering a new, more intensive phase of flight testing. Additional clips recorded in October 2025 show the same tailless, stealthy airframe conducting further sorties, suggesting a deliberate acceleration of the test campaign rather than isolated demonstration flights. Taken together, these closely spaced test events indicate that Beijing is pushing hard to mature the J-36 and translate its prototype status into an operational capability as quickly as possible, with the clear objective of gaining a lead over its principal rival, the United States. Both nations are now locked in a strategic sprint for sixth-generation airpower, where the first air force to field a credible, combat-ready system will gain a decisive advantage in reach, survivability, and control of the battlespace. In such a competition, initial entry into service is not just a symbolic milestone but a tipping point that could reshape the air balance over the Indo-Pacific for years to come.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
China’s J-36 is a large tailless sixth-generation stealth fighter prototype, built for long-range air dominance, deep strike, and command-and-control with advanced sensors and heavy internal weapons load (Picture source: Chinese social media).
The J-36 is unlike any fighter now in frontline service. Open imagery and specialist analysis describe a tailless, trijet flying wing with a stretched diamond double-delta wing, a broad chine running into the leading edge, and side-by-side seating under a wide canopy. Three engines are buried deep in the fuselage, fed by two lateral inlets and a prominent dorsal diverterless supersonic intake, maximizing internal volume for fuel and weapons while hiding hot engine faces from radar and infrared sensors. Multiple ventral bays, including a central cavity roughly 7.5 meters long, appear sized for oversized PL-17-class air-to-air missiles or heavy strike munitions, flanked by smaller side bays for shorter-range weapons.
The second prototype, seen in late October 2025, introduced redesigned serrated exhausts that resemble two-dimensional thrust-vectoring nozzles, revised DSI side intakes, and a new main landing gear layout, all within roughly ten months of the jet’s public debut. That pace suggests Chengdu and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force are iterating aggressively in hardware, trading some rear-aspect signature reduction for stability and maneuverability in a very unstable tailless configuration. Chinese research into ultra-fast turbine-disk cooling, reportedly linked to future J-36 engines, also points to an effort to sustain high thrust while lowering infrared emissions, a critical parameter for defeating modern air-to-air seekers.
Behind the shaping is an equally ambitious sensor and mission-system concept. Public sources already associate the J-36 with a large active electronically scanned array radar, a prominent electro-optical targeting system built into the nose chine, possible side-looking radar arrays, and enough electrical power for multispectral, wide-aperture sensing. Analysts describe the jet as an airborne cruiser, a long-range, supercruising platform that can launch large salvos of long-range missiles while acting as a command-and-control hub for other manned and unmanned aircraft. Combined with side-by-side crew seating and heavy onboard computing, the design looks optimized to manage loyal-wingman drones, coordinate beyond-visual-range engagements, and survive in a dense electronic-warfare environment rather than simply dogfight at short range.
The J-36 fits Beijing’s need for a deep-reach air-dominance and strike asset over the Indo-Pacific’s vast maritime spaces. With its volume for fuel and weapons, it is tailored to patrol far beyond China’s coastline, cueing and firing long-range anti-ship and anti-air missiles against U.S. carrier strike groups and forward air bases while remaining on station as a sensor node. In a future air war, such a platform could sit at the heart of a kill web, absorbing targeting data from satellites, shore-based radar, and drones, then pushing track-quality data to other shooters, complicating U.S. counter-stealth and beyond-visual-range tactics based on distributed sensing and cooperative engagement capability.
The program’s evolution has been unusually public for China. AVIC teased tailless sixth-generation concepts from 2018 onward; on December 26, 2024, a trijet flying-wing prototype appeared over Chengdu, escorted by a twin-seat J-20S, with “36” stenciled on the nose. Through spring 2025, successive videos showed the aircraft landing at Chengdu Aircraft Corporation’s test field, maneuvering with gear up, and later revealing its rear aspect and probable side-by-side cockpit. By October, a substantially re-worked second airframe was flying, and satellite imagery placed both J-36 and the smaller Shenyang tailless design at a remote test base near Lop Nur, a Chinese analogue to the U.S. Area 51.
PLAAF leaders now openly describe the J-36 as China’s interpretation of a sixth-generation aircraft, while U.S. Air Force officials have quietly acknowledged that it could reach initial operational capability ahead of American programs, even if U.S. systems ultimately field more advanced sensors and networking.
Across the Pacific, the benchmark is Boeing’s F-47, the crewed centerpiece of the U.S. Air Force Next Generation Air Dominance family. The F-47 is credited in official and industry briefings with a combat radius beyond 1,000 nautical miles, speeds above Mach 2, broadband low observability, including reduced infrared signature, and tight integration with Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, with the first example now in production and a first flight targeted for 2028.
The U.S. Navy’s carrier-based F/A-XX program, which will replace the F/A-18E/F, has finally cleared a major hurdle after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved moving to contractor selection in October 2025, following a bruising funding dispute that forced Congress to pour in over two billion dollars to keep it on track. F/A-XX is expected to mirror many J-36 and F-47 attributes, with longer range, higher endurance, and close teaming with uncrewed combat aircraft from the carrier air wing.
So who is ahead? In flight-test chronology, China clearly moved first: J-36 prototypes have been flying in public since late 2024, while the F-47 will not fly before 2028, and some assessments now argue that the U.S. is three to four years behind in sixth-generation fighter prototyping. Yet the United States still holds deep advantages in adaptive engines, combat networking, and the broader drone ecosystem underpinning NGAD. The more uncomfortable truth for Washington is that Beijing has learned to sprint from CAD model to flying metal with a speed the U.S. industrial base struggles to match.
Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.
Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.
