Sun Cong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, also the chief designer of China’s J-15 carrier-borne fighter jet, delivers a speech on his views on fighter jet development at a forum on aviation and aerospace medicine in January 2025. Photo: Screenshot from China Central Television
A top Chinese warplane designer said at a recent forum that he dreams of making aircraft like mobile phones, a remark an analyst said on Saturday will be a paradigm shift for what people know in the past if realized.
Sun Cong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, also the chief designer of China’s J-15 carrier-borne fighter jet, delivered a speech on his views on fighter jet development at a forum on aviation and aerospace medicine, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday.
“Our development cycles are too lengthy now, and this has raised a new challenge to our aircraft research and development: Can we make aircraft like mobile phones? This is a dream of ours for the future,” Sun said.
New mobile phones are developed every year, and by comparison, the development of new warplanes now usually takes years or decades. Wang Ya’nan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Saturday that Sun’s remarks are very visionary, providing a target for China to make efforts to achieve.
Wang said that “making aircraft like mobile phones” has a very bright prospect, and it needs to overcome numerous challenges. Aircraft (designing) is a complex system consisting of various complex systems such as weapons, radars and displays. It would require strong comprehensive capabilities of a country to support these all-dimensional upgrades.
It means that new aircraft would need to have highly standardized interfaces, so new upgrades can plug and play. It would need an open structure that has upward and backward compatibility, according to Wang. “It points to a full-system rapid, flexible iteration,” he said.
If this is to be realized, it will be a paradigm shift for what we know in the past, Wang said.
Meanwhile, some of these concepts have already been applied to the designing of China’s J-20 stealth fighter jet. Dong Jun, a J-20 pilot, said in a CCTV report in early January that while the J-20 does not look like it has changed by appearance, but some of its core functions are getting upgrades and improvements every day.
