The United States Sandbox published an analysis report entitled "How to Offset the Superiority of China's First Fighters", arguing that China's J-20 fighter jets will pose a serious threat to the US F-22 fighters after being replaced with WS-15 engines, and may even seize air supremacy in the Far East. The report compares the strengths and weaknesses of the two countries' fighter jets and the U.S. response strategy.
The F-22 is a fifth-generation fighter of the United States, which entered service in 2005 and has advanced technologies such as vector engines, supersonic cruise, and active phased array radar, and is considered the most powerful air superiority fighter in the world. However, due to poor decision-making and technical difficulties in the United States, the F-22 was discontinued in 2011, and only 195 were produced, of which 8 were test machines. Currently, the U.S. Air Force has only 180 F-22s in service, and 33 of them are outdated and need to be upgraded at a significant cost. The combat readiness of the F-22 is also not high, only about 50%. The U.S. Air Force once assessed the cost of restarting F-22 production and found that it would cost more than $50 billion, with a maximum of $3 per fighter300 million dollars, so the idea was abandoned.
At the same time, China's J-20 fighter made its first flight in 2011 and entered service in 2017, making it China's fifth-generation fighter and the first fighter in Asia. The J-20 has a larger fuselage than the F-22, and is superior to the F-22 in terms of bomb load, combat bomb bay layout, range, etc., but it is slightly inferior in cruising speed and top speed, and the stealth performance needs to be improved. However, the J-20 is equipped with EOTS optoelectronic sighting devices and helmet-mounted sighting equipment, which can increase the air combat capabilities of the J-20 to match it with the F-22. The J-20's on-board electronics are also newer than the F-22 and are more adapted to the needs of modern warfare. The J-20 originally used the WS-10C engine, which was inferior to the F-22's F119 engine, however, recently, the J-20 was successfully replaced with the WS-15 engine, which is a fifth-generation fighter engine independently developed by China, which surpassed the F119 engine in performance, making the flight performance of the J-20 greatly improved. It is estimated that the production of J-20 has already exceeded 200 and is constantly increasing.
Sandbox believes that the J-20 will become the biggest threat to the United States after it is replaced with WS-15 engines, because it not only has strong stealth performance and air combat capabilities, but also has enough numbers and range to exert tremendous pressure on the American F-22 and F-35 with the support of early warning aircraft and electronic jamming aircraft, and may even gain air supremacy in the Far East. For the United States to counter this threat, it must develop a next-generation air superiority system, known as NGAD, including the next-generation fighter F-X, the Loyal Wingman program, and the Navy's F A-XX program. These fighters will use variable-cycle engines, more advanced stealth technology, more powerful on-board electronics and more advanced **, as well as a greater range, to regain the initiative in the skies. NGAD will also enhance combat effectiveness with the Loyal Wingman, a type of drone that can be used as a long-term aircraft's ammunition replenishment, forward reconnaissance, air combat support, and sacrifice protection. The NGAD has already made its maiden flight sometime in 2021 or 2022, but it will need to wait until after 2030 to enter service. Until then, the United States could only rely on the F-22 and F-35 to resist the might of the J-20, which was a difficult challenge.