How China’s J-16 drives away foreign stealth jets, deterring them from approaching China’s coastal waters again

 

Li Chao Photo: CCTV news

"My canopy was only about 10 to 15 meters away from his…" In a documentary titled Invincible about the V-Day military parade, aired Thursday on China Central Television, a pilot from the special mission aircraft formation shared his experience of driving away two foreign stealth fighter jets while flying a domestically developed J-16 fighter jet, according to CCTV news.

Li Chao, a pilot with the PLA Air Force under the Western Theater Command, encountered two foreign fighter jets during a coastal training mission in 2024. "They headed straight toward our two aircraft. Their intention was very clear—it was a provocation.With our backs to the territorial sea line, we had to intercept them."

During the first encounter, Li locked onto the foreign fighter jet. Its wingman immediately broke away at high speed, while the other foreign fighter jet exited the combat zone and locked onto Li's jet. Seizing the opportunity, Li pulled up his aircraft and executed a barrel roll, flying inverted directly above the foreign jet.

"At that moment, my canopy was just 10 to 15 meters away from his. After completing this maneuver, I simultaneously locked onto both foreign fighter jets. In the end, both aircraft withdrew," Li said. 

That was the only encounter. Since then, this type of foreign fighter jet has not been spotted again near China's coastal waters, according to CCTV.

Chinese media revealed on Monday how China’s J-20 stealth ...

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After multiple rounds of intensive attack and defense, the foreign military aircraft were finally expelled. (Video: CCTV Military Channel) ...

Highlights of Shenzhou-20 manned mission, Air Support Team Ready for Return of China's Shenzhou-19 Astronauts, China's Tiandu satellite pulls off laser ranging in Earth-moon space under daylight, marking a world first

Highlights of Shenzhou-20 manned mission

Missions of the Shenzhou-20 crewed spaceship, scheduled to be launched at 5:17 pm, April 24, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China, include: - Completing an in-orbit rotation with the Shenzhou-19 crew, staying at the China Space Station for ...

 

The air support team has carried out multiple search and rescue drills and is now ready for the return of the Shenzhou-19 crew members who are preparing to conclude their six-month mission aboard China's space station Tiangong in orbit.

China's Tiandu satellite pulls off laser ranging in Earth-moon space under daylight, marking a world first

By 

Deng Xiaoci

Published: Apr 29, 2025 09:45 AM

 

 

 

 

Photo: DSEL

From Saturday to Sunday, China's Tiandu-1 communication and navigation technology experiment satellite successfully conducted a laser ranging technology test in the Earth-moon space under strong daylight interference conditions, marking a world first in overcoming the time restriction of satellite laser ranging in Earth-Moon space only being performed at night, signifying a new technological advancement in the field of precision measurement in deep space orbits, Global Times learned from the satellite developer China's Deep Space Exploration Lab (DSEL) on Monday.

Due to the vast scale of Earth-moon space and the extremely high speed of satellite motion, conducting laser ranging on satellites in such an environment is akin to aiming at a single hair (sub-millimeter target) from 10,000 meters away while performing precise tracking and signal acquisition, said DSEL in a statement it provided to the Global Times on Sunday. 

Satellite laser ranging in Earth-moon space was limited to nighttime conditions without light interference, restricting observation periods and resulting in insufficient frequency of orbital dynamic data collection. The successful execution of this laser ranging test under daylight interference conditions significantly expands the observation window for this technology, providing a practical engineering foundation for its widespread application, DSEL said. 

This achievement will strongly support the validation and implementation of major deep space exploration missions, such as the International Lunar Research Station, it added. 

As the first satellites ever developed by DSEL, the Tiandu-1 and -2 satellites were sent into space together with the Queqiao-2 relay satellite on March 20, 2024. They entered their target circumlunar orbits on March 29 and separated on April 3, according to the Xinhua News Agency. They have conducted a series of technological experiments for lunar communication and navigation.