China to Arm Its J-20 Stealth Fighter With Lasers

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) A Chinese government-backed newspaper is floating the idea that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force J-20 might soon fire laser weapons to incinerate opposing aircraft and ground targets. 

J-20 Laser Weapons

While the story in the Global Times mentions little to no specifics regarding the maturity of such a plan and does not offer any detail on testing, prototyping or development, the paper does refer to efforts to arm fighter jets with a “laser pod.” 

t certainly seems realistic that the PLA Air Force would be working on this in an effort to keep pace with the US Air Force. 

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Lasers are a great tool for aerial interception, as weapons able to travel at the speed of light, there is no time delay. However laser weapons require a large amount of energy to be effective and that is the issue that must be addressed for it to be mounted on an aircraft.

Questions regarding progress with integrating laser weapons onto fighter jets are largely centered around the need for scalable, transportable sources of mobile power. Should sufficient power to generate scalable power for laser weapons exist in a small enough form factor to integrate onto a fighter jet, then J-20 fired lasers are indeed realistic. How soon is the operative question, as the US Air Force Research Laboratory has been making rapid progress on this issue for many years.