China’s Stealth Jets Are 2 Years Ahead Of Schedule

China's second J-20 stealth fighter. Image: David Cenciotti and fyjs.cn

Surprise! China’s Stealth Jets Are 2 Years Ahead of Schedule -- The Danger Room

Last year, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was greeted in Beijing by China’s experimental stealth jet buzzing over his head. Gates didn’t sweat it: He proclaimed that the J-20 wouldn’t be ready until at least 2020. Oops.

The Pentagon’s top China official has now revised that estimate. The J-20, China’s first stealth jet, will be operationally ready “no sooner than 2018,” David Helvey, deputy secretary of defense for East Asia and Asia Pacific Security Affairs, told reporters Friday.

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Update #1: Report: Chinese stealth fighter to be operational by 2018 -- CNN
Update #2: New China Stealth Fighter: Rival to Troubled US F-22 Raptor? -- KBOI
Update #3: China’s stealth fighter gets lethal re-design -- Smart Planet

My Comment: I am not surprised .... and guess what .... they are probably even more ahead of their schedule than what they are telling us. But what should concern us is not this jet .... but that next jet that they are planning to put together in some secret place.