A new report from the U.S. Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute says the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has started to implement a new training curriculum for its fighter pilots.
Xu Zheng, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The report’s author, Derek Solen, says the PLAAF had three problems with its fighter pilot training program. First, the program was too long; second, it lacked an advanced trainer aircraft that matches the capabilities of its newest fighters; and thirdly, the program did not prepare those pilots for combat.
The service took steps to shorten its training program by cutting it from ten to seven or eight years. The introduction of the Hongdu JL-10 into service at the Shijiazhuang flight academy also allowed it to eliminate the Intermediate Flight Training phase. This could have shorten the training program by a year.
Lastly, it added unscripted air-to-air combat to the training curriculum and students now get to drop live munitions for air-to-surface strike training.
2021-02-16 Initial Fighter Pilot Training