U.S. Pacific Air Forces Commander Kenneth Wilsbach revealed in a March 15 online discussion that the U.S. F-35 recently had a close encounter with Chinese J-20 fighter jets over the East China Sea and said “the J-20 flew quite well and quite professionally.
On March 5, Chinese Air Force J-20 pilot Wang Li revealed on China’s CCTV “Military Report” that he had participated in a number of missions since his switch to the J-20, including large system exercises and usual maritime response control. This is the second time a J-20 unit has been confirmed to participate in usual maritime response control, the last time it was confirmed was in July last year.
Kenneth Wilsbach was asked about the J-20’s position during a discussion at the U.S. Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He replied, “It’s too early to say what they intend to do with the J-20. What we’ve seen so far is that the J-20 is performing air superiority missions.”
“We have noticed that they are flying the J-20 very well. Our F-35s recently got relatively close to the J-20 over the East China Sea – not engagement. we were impressed with the command and control system that the J-20 belongs to. The Chinese Air Force has a number of other types of aircraft in the East China Sea airspace, and their flight command and control is excellent.”
He further added that the J-20 flies quite professionally. “It is still too early to say where the J-20 is positioned. What are they going to do with it, is it more of a multi-role fighter like the F-35 that can perform multiple missions? Or is it more like the F-22, an air superiority-based fighter with some ground capability? It’s too early to draw any conclusions.”
Kenneth Wilsbach also talked about the KJ-500 early warning aircraft, saying it plays an important role. He said, “What I would tell you is that their air command and control capabilities, particularly the KJ-500, which plays an important role in certain areas of operations. Some of their very long-range air-to-air missiles are assisted by the KJ-500. How to interrupt this over-the-horizon kill chain is something that I’m very interested in.”
According to Chinese media reports, the FlightGlobal website reported Kenneth Wilsbach’s comments and mentioned that he was suggesting that the KJ-500 might identify and assign targets for Chinese fighters in combat.