China’s J-35A Stealth Jet Created to Neutralize Hostile Stealth Aircraft

China's newest stealth fighter, the J-35A, will lead the country's air defense network in a "coordinator" role to take on hostile stealth aircraft.

 The J-35A was created to act as the backbone of the Chinese Air Force's efforts to neutralize high-level threats, especially hostile stealth aircraft, Wang Yongqing, the J-35A's chief designer at Aviation Industry Corp of China's Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute, told China Daily.

Moreover, the J-35A was designed to rapidly create a fleet of affordable and powerful stealth jets, he was quoted as saying at the institute's headquarters in Shenyang, Liaoning province.

"Our adversaries will  use their stealth aircraft or low-observable cruise missiles to penetrate our air defense networks. If those aircraft succeed in breaking through, they will be able to spot us from hundreds of kilometers away but at the same time we can't find them. That means our defense units will not be able to survive such an encounter," Wang said in the interview.

Explaining the need for the J-35A, Wang said the defense network needs a plane that can "see" hostile objects, track and intercept them. More importantly, the J-35A will empower and coordinate other assets in the network.

"It can lock on to the targets, share their position with other weapon systems, such as surface-to-air missiles, and even use its own radar to guide other weapons to bring the targets down. This is called  'multi-domain coordination'," he explained.

The Shenyang institute of AVCI is known for developing a number of combat planes that have been widely deployed in the Chinese military such as the J-8 and J-11B, as well as the J-15, the country's first carrier-borne fighter jet.

The J-35A made its public debut in November at the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, shortly after it was declassified by the Air Force.

Its overall design is based on the J-35, a stealth naval fighter developed for deployment in the near future on the PLA Navy's aircraft carriers and for cooperation with the J-15 in carrier-based air operations.

Currently, the PLA Air Force has deployed a large fleet of J-20 heavy-duty stealth combat aircraft, that went into commission in late 2016. The J-20's basic configuration has evolved into several variants including a twin-seat version.