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| Outnumber F-22s , China is said to have rivaled the US by producing 207 Units J-20 |
International Military - It is not known how many J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter jets are owned and operated by the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). This is because China itself has never openly announced the number of J-20s that have been produced by its factory, Chengdu Aerospace Corporation (Chengdu).
This is in contrast to the United States which clearly states how many F-22 Raptors or B-2 Spirit bombers it will produce, for example. For exported fighter jets such as the F-16 or F-35, the data regarding the final number produced is more detailed. Both for domestic needs and for export abroad.
Andreas Ruppercht, a Chinese military aviation researcher, said that the PLAAF currently operates more than 200 J-20s, as quoted by Air Data News. His guess is based on high-resolution images obtained from the recently passed Airshow China 2022.
At the air show in Zhuhai, Guangdong, the J-20 was seen with the codes "CB0369" and "CB0370" on the front of the aircraft, specifically behind the aircraft canopy. According to Ruppercht, this code denotes the J-20 coming from the 4th production batch.
CB03 means the 4th production batch. Because the production of the first batch was coded CB00. While 69 and 70 in the code "CB0369" and "CB0370" means the 69th and 70th aircraft. At least, he said, in this 4th batch alone there were already 70 aircraft units, referring to that number.
He added that the production batch of CB00 had 18 units, followed by 45 units of CB01 and 56 units of CB02. All of these aircraft have been completed. This means that 189 J-20s have been produced. Coupled with the initial 18 pre-production aircraft, the total number of J-20s reached 207 units.
Do Ruppercht's estimates match the facts?
We won't know until Chengdu, which manufactures the J-20 or the PLAAF operating the plane, speaks up. If this is true, the number of J-20s produced has already exceeded the number of F-22s either owned by the USAF or produced by Lockheed Martin.
The F-22 was recorded as having produced 195 units, consisting of 187 used by the USAF and 8 units as test aircraft. Production of the F-22 has also been declared over.