Death War in the Air: Chinese J-10 vs. Upgraded US Air Force F-16

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) For many years, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAN) has been flying hundreds of single-seat J-10 fighter jets, aircraft which emerged roughly 20 years ago as a potential F-15 and F-16 rival.

J-10 Takes Flight

While emerging many years after the F-16, it certainly seems possible that China developed and deployed the aircraft in large numbers as part of a key effort to rival U.S. Air Force 4th-generation jets.

With a reported range of 1,150 nautical miles and speeds of Mach 2, according to both U.S. and Chinese news reports, the J-10 may have arrived as a slightly more modern or more capable challenge to the 1980s-era US F-15 and F-16.

However, not so fast, as the U.S. Air Force has upgraded and improved the F-15 and F-16 in extremely impactful ways for many years with new radar, sensors, EW systems, weapons, and avionics, among other things. In fact, an F-16 modernization and Service Life Extension Plan (SLEP) has extended the airframes into the future with thousands more operational miles and flight hours, as part of a clear Air Force plan to fly the jet into the 2040s.

Interestingly, years ago a Congressional report on U.S.-China economic and security issues specifically mentioned that upgrades to U.S. 4th-generation aircraft were extremely significant to ensure U.S. Air Force jets remained competitive with and even superior to Chinese 4th-gen planes such as the J-10, J-11, and J-16. A recent report in the Chinese government-backed Global Times newspaper says the PLA’s carrier-capable J-15 is receiving the WS-10 Chinese-built engine.

“The WS-10 Taihang is a series of turbofan engines with high thrust and high thrust-to-weight ratio independently developed by China, and they have been used by a number of China’s warplanes including the J-10, J-11, J-16 and J-20 fighter jets, but carrier-based J-15s used to use Russian Al-31F engines,” a Global Times report from Nov. 2022 states.