Briefing: Teeth of the dragon

[karachiwala]

The fascinating emergence of China's J-XX next-generation combat aircraft demonstrator in late 2010 has refocused attention on the pace of military aerospace development in the People's Republic. The carefully stage-managed revelation of the large and unconventional 'new Chengdu machine 2001', or J-20, as many are calling it, seems to confirm that China has grand industrial ambitions and attention-getting operational requirements.
Whether the '2001 programme' will fulfil any of those aims remains to be seen. At this early stage there is still more than a hint of amateur dramatics surrounding the aircraft and the speed with which this secret project has been exposed to the outside world. All early assessments of its capabilities should be restrained, but the 2001 programme is nevertheless the fourth or fifth new combat aircraft development project in China - as many as those from the rest of the world combined.
Even before the arrival of the J-XX, China was heavily engaged with the Chengdu J-10 multirole fighter and what could be a significantly enhanced successor in the shape of the J-10B. At Shenyang the J-11B has emerged as an 'indigenised' Su-27 with combat capabilities that far exceed China's original Sukhoi Su-27SK and baseline J-11 aircraft.



http://www.janes.com/news/defence/air/jdw/jdw110119_1_n.shtml

 

[karachiwala]

UAV attacks on Pakistan-based militants reach peak

Attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against targets in the northwest area of Pakistan reached a new peak in 2010.
By the end of December, a total of 120 attacks had been reported for the year, more than twice the 51 recorded in 2009. In its own listing of attacks, the website www.longwarjournal.org reported that in the course of 2010, 18 "senior Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders" had been killed.
These attacks have never been reported in the US Air Force's daily summaries of air combat operations in the region and are widely attributed to a clandestine operation run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Since there is no official listing of these attacks, their number can only be estimated from local press reports. While individual summaries of the attacks give slightly differing totals - partly due to compilers having to form a judgment as to whether two strikes conducted a short time apart constitute one attack or two - the general pattern remains clear.
Following the first reported UAV attack in 2004, the campaign remained low-key, with two attacks reported in 2005, two more in 2006 and four in 2007.


http://www.janes.com/news/defence/systems/jmr/jmr110111_2_n.shtml