Chinese Navy’s Upgraded J-11B Likely with New AESA Radar Joins S.China Sea Exercises

At least one of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s upgraded version of the J-11B fighter – likely fitted with a brand-new AESA radar – participated in a recent mock combat exercise featuring more than 10 jets over the South China Sea.

Organized by a brigade affiliated with the PLA Southern Theater Command Navy Aviation Force, the round-the-clock flight training featured free aerial battle and offensive and defensive tactical maneuvers, the PLA Southern Theater Command said in its Weibo account on Monday. The exercise had four-versus-two and two-versus-two mock battles, Chinese state media reported.

J-11B’s Inclusion in South China Sea Drills Related to U.S. Navy Warship’s Entry?

On Monday, the U.S. Navy’s USS Miguel Keith expeditionary mobile base, a type of large logistics support and command and control vessel, reportedly entered the disputed South China Sea for the first time.

Having a displacement of more than 90,000 tons, the USS Miguel Keith is the third ship in the Lewis B. Puller-class expeditionary mobile base that can carry out a number of tasks including hosting the landing and takeoffs of heavy helicopters; providing logistics support including maintenance, repair, refuel, rearm and replenishment to other warships and helicopters, greatly increasing their endurance when operating far away from a land base; and acting as a command-and-control center. It can also carry a large number of equipment and supplies.

The USS Miguel Keith played the flagship role during the Noble Fusion U.S.-Japan joint drills in February.

China should pay close attention to the USS Miguel Keith's movements and figure out ways to deal with it, because its presence in the South China Sea could significantly enhance the U.S. military's operational capabilities in the region, a Chinese military expert told the Global Times on Tuesday, requesting anonymity.

New AESA Radar for Modernized J-11B Jet?

Both the video released by the PLA Southern Theater Command and the CCTV report gave a glimpse of a J-11B fighter jet returning from the exercise and entering its hangar. This particular J-11B had a grayish white radar dome instead of the black radar domes that other J-11Bs have, observers noted.

Similar changes have been observed in the PLA Air Force since 2019, when the Air Force's J-11Bs with black radar domes started to switch to white ones, according to eastday.com, a Shanghai-based news website. It has been widely speculated that the color change to the radar dome indicates that the J-11B has received an upgrade to its radar, possibly switching from the old pulse Doppler radar to the new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.

This, together with other possible changes, will allow the upgraded J-11B to enjoy a longer detection range, identify more targets and enable the use of more advanced weapons like the PL-10 short-range combat missile and the PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, Chinese analysts were quoted as saying by the Global Times.

The PLA Navy's J-11Bs are also getting China's domestically developed WS-10 engines.

With the improvements, the fourth generation J-11B will reach a fourth-plus generation level, and remain in active service with high competitiveness for a long time, analysts said.