“The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built,” U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin boasted earlier this year. And yet, for all such bravado, America’s sixth-generation fighter remains grounded while China’s Chengdu J-36 has already been seen publicly flight-tested since December 2024, announcing a real head start in a competition that will determine air dominance.
The J-36’s appearance was anything but coincidental. Built by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, the tailless, delta-wing aircraft is a behemoth of any size estimated at 99,200 to 119,000 pounds and some 75 feet in length. Its most unusual aspect is a triple-engine configuration, now utilizing WS-10C afterburning turbofans rated at approximately 13 tons each, with the option of upgrading to the higher-rated WS-15 Emei, 18 tons of thrust. This arrangement, supplied by two lateral caret inlets and a dorsal diverterless supersonic inlet, offers remarkable high-altitude capabilities and range strike capability, but at greater complexity in maintenance and fuel usage.
The airframe’s broad, tailless delta wing popularly known as the “Ginkgo Leaf” is designed for supercruise and low radar detectability. Without vertical stabilizers, stability is provided by sophisticated flight control software and split-flap rudders at the wingtips, a solution borrowed from the U.S. B-2 Spirit. The tandem twin-seat cockpit, uncommon in fighters but ubiquitous in long-range strike jets such as the Su-34, suggests a mission profile involving great crew coordination, perhaps to control autonomous “loyal wingman” UAVs and elaborate sensor webs. Three internal bays for weapons one large central bay with two smaller side bays are provided for carrying both very long-range air-to-air missiles such as the PL-17 and standoff air-to-ground ordnance without sacrificing stealth.
China has developed its test program at a rapid pace. By its second known flight in March 2025, the J-36 was already retracting landing gear and free-flying without a chase plane such things tend to be reserved for later stages and imply high confidence in stability. The design philosophy of the aircraft is also consonant with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s move towards system-of-systems warfare, where a manned platform leads a formation of unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), electronic warfare platforms, and other fighters. Commentators observe that this is similar to the United States Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) vision but with China presumably opting for a “good enough” solution to make operational service by 2030 or sooner.
Over the Pacific, the F-47 NGAD program is taking a more elaborate route. Granted to Boeing in the early part of 2025 following a “strategic pause” due to cost issues, the aircraft is being developed as the centerpiece of an expansive NGAD family. This encompasses more than 1,000 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), like the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, meant to fight as armed, AI-based wingmen. These drones will provide extended sensor reach, carry more weapons, and even take a beating from enemy fire, but need secure line-of-sight control links, which restricts their independent range.
The F-47 itself is still classified. Illustrations indicate a twin-engine, tailless stealth aircraft with canard foreplanes an odd selection for low observability designed to fly at over Mach 2 and have a combat radius of over 1,000 nautical miles. Power will be supplied by next-generation adaptive cycle engines, either GE’s XA102 or Pratt & Whitney’s XA103, which can switch between high-thrust and efficiency modes while delivering the electrical power and thermal management to support future sensors and directed-energy weapons. Digital engineering and open-architecture avionics are key to the program, allowing for quick upgrades and integration of future technology.
Although President Trump claimed that “an experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost 5 years,” these were NGAD X-plane demonstrators, not the production F-47. The Air Force would like to see a first flight prior to January 2029, but maturing requirements and the technological complexity of combining crewed and uncrewed systems may delay operational readiness into the 2030s.
The tech competition between the F-47 and J-36 represents different strategies. China’s approach focuses on brute thrust, payload, and multirole versatility at the expense of some stealth and subsonic maneuverability for range and war-fighting potential. The U.S. strategy focuses on all-aspect stealth, evolutionary propulsion, and deep integration with autonomous systems to achieve unparalleled situational awareness and survivability in contested airspace. Both are being built as networked command nodes, not conventional fighters, fuzzing the distinction between air superiority and strike missions.
Being first to operational use might mean a lot symbolically in this contest, but what will ultimately decide matters is how well each platform can function as part of its country’s overall combat system where sensors, drones, and data links can be as important as speed, stealth, or weapons.
