China’s New J-36 Stealth Fighter Summed Up in 4 Words

Key Points – New images and analysis of China’s Chengdu J-36, a 6th-generation stealth aircraft prototype first seen in late 2024, reveal new details about its potential design and mission.

-Nicknamed the “Gingko leaf” for its wide, tailless delta wing shape optimized for supercruise, the J-36 is now estimated to be a heavyweight aircraft, larger than the J-20.

J-36 Fighter from China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-The most surprising new details include a side-by-side two-seat cockpit—a configuration typical of long-range fighter-bombers like the F-111 or Su-34—and a three-engine, three-internal-weapons-bay layout, suggesting a significant payload capacity for long-range strike missions.

China’s J-36 Fighter in 4 Words: 2 Seats, More Mystery 

WARSAW, POLAND – The People’s Republic of China (PRC) shocked the world of military aircraft late last year by revealing the existence of two 6th-generation stealth fighter jets – the Chengdu J-36 and the Shenyang J-50.

The two aircraft both flew from the aerodromes of their respective design centers and production facilities on the same day – 26 December – the date celebrated in the PRC as Mao Zedong’s birthday.

In the intervening period, there have been additional sightings of the aircraft, resulting in more images and eyewitness accounts, and producing numerous new details about the two aircraft.

With the additional images and some triangulation with the background of where they have been photographed, there are some new assumptions and estimates that can be made about their details and intended mission profiles.

More J-36 Datapoints 

The Chengdu J-36 has acquired the nicknamed of the “Gingko leaf” due to its unusual shape.  It was developed by the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation (CAIC) in the PRC’s Sichuan Province.

However, its existence and even that it was built by the Chengdu design team have never been officially acknowledged.

The designator  J-36 is also not known to be an official PLAAF model designation was given to the aircraft due to the serial number “36011” being painted on the one and only prototype of the aircraft when the initial images of it were taken.

This assumption was made based on the serial numbers that were assigned to the initial J-20 fighter aircraft that flew in early 2011.

A Larger Than Normal Delta Wing and Heavyweight Aircraft

The J-36’s “Gingko Leaf” nickname comes from its elongated diamond shape and extremely wide delta wing platform.

There are two aerodynamic advantages to this kind of design. One is that the overall cross-section of the fuselage is minimized, which creates less and produces less drag, particularly at high speeds.

The wings also feature trailing edge control surfaces and split flaps that are visible close to the wingtips. This arrangement gives the airframe the best possible design for achieving supercruise.

Still, it can also be a sacrifice of maneuverability for the performance to operate at high speeds with maximum efficiency.

The trailing control surfaces are necessary in that the aircraft is also tailless. Like earlier designs that eliminated vertical control surfaces to reduce radar signature – like the B-2 and B-21 bombers – the movement of those control surfaces is what maintains the unstable planform of the aircraft in stable flight.

More recent images showing details of the aircraft’s frontal hemisphere have generated some dimensional data estimates published in Chinese media outlets.

They assessed the aircraft to be close to 75 feet long and said that it weighs between 99,200 and 119,000 pounds.

This is significantly larger and heavier than previous estimates and also significantly heavier than Chengdu’s other famous fighter design, the fifth-generation J-20, which weighs in at 75,000 to 82,000 pounds.

These Seats Are Side-by-Side

In an image taken of the aircraft on the ground, there are details of the cockpit section, which appear to show that the aircraft is a two-seat, side-by-side aircraft.

This configuration is rarely seen in fighter jets as we tend to think of them. Still, it is the arrangement in previous-generation long-range, fighter-bomber models like the Sukhoi Su-24 and Su-34 and the US General Dynamics F-111.

F-111. Image Credit. Creative Commons.

More interestingly, the aircraft also seems to have three internal weapons bays on the underside of the fuselage. There is one large center bay and two smaller ones on each side.

A three-bay design could be for more than one reason. One is that the larger bay would be used for standoff weapons, while the smaller bays would be for smaller, shorter-range missiles.

These bays, plus the three-engine configuration, reveal that the aircraft has a considerable amount of internal space.  This would be required not only for many weapons but for all of the fuel that would have to be carried internally.

The three engines, which may be the Shenyang WS-15 Emei or the Guizhou WS-19 Huangshan, would require a considerable weapons to carry the aircraft to the targets in the second island chain that it appears would be the mission for J-36.

MORE: The F-35 Fighter Is In Trouble Officially 

MORE: China J-20 Is Now a ‘Bomb Truck’

Another design feature seen in these “head-on” images is that the J-36’s nose may have gold-tinted sensor windows. This has been part of the design for US stealth aircraft, as well as for signature reduction programs for non-stealthy designs like the F-16 HAVE GLASS aircraft.

The PRC’s security apparatus is known for its pathological secrecy, so almost no official information about the J-36 or its mission has been discussed openly.

A real possibility is that this aircraft may be designed to be a multi-role combat platform.

It remains to be seen if the aircraft will end up being a “fighter that thinks it’s a bomber” or vice versa.

About the Author:

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw.  He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design.  Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.

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