China’s military has trimmed at least a year off its fighter pilot training programmes, with one US source predicting that the PLA will have “completely modernised” its pilot instruction system by the early 2030s.
The reduction in the pilot programme from at least four years to three comes as the People’s Liberation Army steps up combat readiness and overhauls its fighter fleet, adding more stealth J-20s and commissioning the J-35A, an upgraded version of the fifth-generation multirole fighter.
