Chinese Flying Leopard – JH-7 The Xian JH-7 Flying Leopard is Chinese fighter/bomber aircraft. The Air Force version of this aircraft was regarded as a tactical bomber and designated H-7, while the Navy version was viewed as a fighter-bomber and referred to as the JH-7. By the early 1980s, after three years of intensive research …
The Nanchang Q-6 looked like a curious combination of two different aircraft from both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’. The centre/rear fuselage, wings and tail unit were borrowed wholesale from the MiG-23 (except that the tip of the fin was cropped horizontally, not raked). So were the main landing gear units featuring an ingenious double-hinged …
The story of Nanchang Q-5 began in 1955 when China clashed with Taiwan in armed conflict for the Yijang-Shan Island – and captured the latter. Although the PLAAF’s Ilyushin IL-10M ground attack aircraft (NATO reporting name Bark) flying close air support (CAS) missions for the Chinese marines coped with their task, it was clear that …
In early 1956 the Soviet Union agreed to licence production of the Tupolev Tu-16 medium bomber (NATO reporting name Badger) in China, called Xian H-6. The Xian H-6, which first flew in April 1952 and entered Soviet Air Force service in February1954, represented the then-latest state of the art in Soviet bomber design. The Tu-16 …
After the western powers pulled out of the Super 7 project in early 1990 in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the project was cancelled, China decided to carry on with the light fighter programme alone. In 1991 the Chengdu Aircraft Co. launched a new project designated Chengdu FC-1 (FC-1 – Fighter China-1) …
The Chinese J-10 fighter is one of China’s most ambitious fighter programmes – and one of the most controversial too. The story of this aircraft began when the No. 611 Research Institute in Chengdu launched Project 8810 – a fourth-generation fighter intended as a successor to the J-7 and, to a certain extent, the Q-5. …
Taking due account of the Vietnam War experience of operating fighters from ad hoc ‘ambush airstrips’ to intercept US strike aircraft formations, in 1969 the PLAAF posed a requirement for a light tactical fighter having short take-off and landing (STOL) capability. The Shenyang J-11 was to be a replacement for the obsolescent J-6 and, to …