China's Jian-12 or J-12 (F-12 for foreign markets)

China's Jian-12 or J-12 (F-12 for foreign markets) is 5th generation multi-role jet due to fly by 2012 and enter service by 2015. It has been codenamed XXJ or XX-J by US's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). J-12 is destined to be China's top-end fighter along with the Su-30MKK when it will be introduced. The images below are artist renditions from spy photos and official images released by the P.R.C. over the years.







The J-12 or the XXJ is China's fifth (what happened to the fourth?) generation. The revealed design shows an aircraft with a stealthy appearance and the capabilities of a fifth generation fighter. The program is referred to as F-12 in China. The office of the Naval Intelligence revealed the existence of this project. The ONI believes that the Chinese researchers have begun studies on the design concept. The studies are conducted by Chengdu aircraft manufacturing plant and they are considering a twin engine version for the aircraft and is believed to have a single and twin seat configuration.

In 1986 China signed a US$550 million agreement with Grumman to modernize its J-7 (MiG-21 Fishbed) fighter aircraft under the "Super-7" upgrade project. Western companies from the US and Britain were competing to provide the engine and avionics. The project was cancelled in early 1990, in the wake of the cooling of political relations with the West, as well as in response to a 40% increase in the cost of the project. However, Chengdu managed to continue the programme with its own resources and the project was re-branded as FC-1 (Fighter China-1) and later F-12.

For now, China's top-end plane remains J-10, which is basically an Israeli airframe with Russian engines. It is still under development and it is expected that Russian content will increase extensively as the development progresses.

China has developed close ties with Russia's aerospace industry and has license produced many fighters including MiG-21 and Su-27. Their FC-1/Super 7 design is based on MiG-33 (which was rejected by Soviet Air Force). Earlier Chinese planes are the Q-5 Fantan, J-8 Finback and FBC-1. The FBC-1 was their latest attempt, and wasn't successful - the Su-27 filled in for it. Considering their track record, it may well be possible that the J-12 ends up being a re-christened MiG MFI. MAPO-MIG is already involved in the J-10 program. MFI is one of the world's 5th generation designs.

The J-12 is expected to enter service in the year 2015. There may be a delay in this expectation as the Chinese lack the capability to build some of the vital systems on the aircraft such as the Radar absorbent material and most important the engine which is believed to be a thrust vectoring engine. This means that the Chinese would have to purchase equipment from Russia. But the provision of such equipment by Russia is still a question as Russia denied the sale of engines for the Super-7 project because of pressure from one of Russia's allies. The Super-7 project is almost nearing a state in which it will be scrapped.

Another main problem with the Chinese is that they have no fourth generation fighters except for the Su-27s which are made in license production. This would mean a generation leap for the Chinese. Though the J-12 belongs to the same generation to that of the F-22 and the MiG-MFI/LFI it would be far more inferior to those aircraft in many ways. Some have speculated that Chengdu is developing the J-12 by drawing from design clues from the F-22 but that would be problematic since they do not have a F-22 to reverse engineer.