The sixth-generation fighter under development by China's Shenyang Aircraft Corporation continues to register progress in flight testing, with an increasing volume of visual footage showing the aircraft operating at both low and high altitudes, as revealed by Military Watch Magazine on September 11.
The fighter is broadly comparable in dimensions to the country's most capable fifth-generation fighter type, the J-20, while a second sixth-generation fighter type under development by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation features much larger proportions and appears designated for operations across vastly greater ranges.
These two aircraft represent the only tailless fighter types currently undergoing flight testing anywhere in the world, with China's defense sector demonstrating its capacity to produce fighters with exceptionally high levels of maneuverability, utilizing designs that fully compensate for the absence of conventional vertical stabilizers.
Shenyang's «pocket-sized» sixth-generation fighter
A primary advantage of Shenyang's fighter is that its smaller size compared to the airframe developed by Chengdu is expected to render production and sustainment substantially cheaper.
This is critical for the widespread field deployment of the fighters, as severe cost overruns associated with the American F-35 and F-22 served as the primary bottleneck preventing the wide-scale replacement of fourth-generation fighters, whereas in China's case the cost-effectiveness of the fifth-generation J-20 permitted its procurement on a vast scale.
The Shenyang fighter is expected to offer a one-for-one replacement for legacy heavyweight fighter types, likely phasing out platforms such as the Su-30MKK and J-11B from frontline service in the 2030s.
The challenges of tailless design
In 2025, Chinese researchers associated with the program published a research paper concerning flight-control technology for a tailless flying-wing aircraft operating from an aircraft carrier.
The significance is considerable, because a tailless aircraft presents unusual challenges during carrier approaches: without conventional vertical stabilizers and rudders, flight-control software and distributed control surfaces must compensate for the loss of conventional aerodynamic control authority.
The remarkably high levels of maneuverability demonstrated by Chengdu's fighter, however, indicate that aerodynamic designs have compensated for this absence.
While Chengdu's fighter may prove too large for carrier operations, Shenyang's sixth-generation fighter is very likely intended for service across both the Navy and the Air Force.
China fields two sixth-generation fighters, stunning the US
Satellite imagery in 2025 revealed both the Chengdu and Shenyang next-generation fighters stationed at a remote Chinese military flight-test facility in Xinjiang.
The installation at Lop Nur commands an exceptionally isolated location, an extremely long runway, and a history intertwined with China's nuclear weapons testing program, rendering it singularly well-suited for sensitive aerospace development.
The installation subsequently underwent substantial infrastructural expansion, with new hangars, taxiways, and support infrastructure appearing in recent satellite imagery.
Reports in September 2026 have linked this expansion directly to the testing of China's next-generation fighters and bombers, although the precise relationship between individual construction projects and the sixth-generation fighters remains unconfirmed.
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