Shenyang J-15

China’s First Carrier Fighter Began as a Prototype Bought From Ukraine

The Shenyang J-15 is China’s first operational carrier-based fighter, a twin-engine multirole aircraft flown by the People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force. It is usually classed as a 4.5-generation fighter and carries the name Feisha, or Flying Shark.

Its lineage runs back to the Soviet Flanker family. China tried more than once to buy the carrier-capable Su-33 from Russia, and the talks collapsed: Moscow’s account is that it learned China had already built its own modified Su-27SK, while the Chinese account is that Russia demanded a minimum order of fifty aircraft plus the cost of restarting the production line.

What broke the deadlock was a single airframe. China acquired the T-10K-3, an unfinished Su-33 prototype, from Ukraine in 2001, and bought a second pre-production airframe, the T-10K-7, in 2004.

The J-15 program began in 2006. Its stated goal was a naval fighter developed from the J-11, using technology reverse-engineered from the T-10K-3.

The first J-15 flew on 31 August 2009. A ski-jump takeoff from a simulated deck followed on 7 May 2010, and a test pilot made the type’s first arrested landing aboard the carrier Liaoning on 21 October 2012.

Chinese media publicly reported carrier landings on 25 November 2012, crediting the first to naval aviator Dai Mingmeng. Luo Yang, the aircraft’s head of production, died that same day. The J-15 entered operational service in December 2013, and the first 24 aircraft were delivered to the navy’s carrier fighter group that year.

How the J-15 Differs From the Su-33

The J-15 is not a copied Su-33 so much as a Chinese aircraft built on the same structural template. It uses a higher proportion of composite materials than the Su-33, which saves weight, and it lands more slowly as a result.

A lower approach speed matters more at sea than almost anywhere else, because every landing ends in an arrested stop on a moving deck. The airframe is reinforced for that punishment, with a tailhook, strengthened landing gear and wings that fold to fit the hangar deck.

Inside, the aircraft is Chinese rather than Russian. The J-15 took the glass cockpit, avionics and Type 1493 pulse-Doppler radar from the land-based J-11B program, with added air-to-surface capability for maritime work.

The Engine Problem, and How China Fixed It

Engines were the J-15’s longest-running weakness. Early production aircraft used Russian Saturn AL-31F turbofans, and in 2012 Hu Siyuan of the PLA National Defence University said plainly that those Russian engines were the aircraft’s weak point.

China’s answer was the domestic WS-10. Prototypes including the original J-15 and the later J-15T were tested with the WS-10H, and the fleet moved to the WS-10B in 2022.

Published figures put afterburning thrust somewhere between 122.6 and 135 kN per engine depending on which powerplant is fitted, which is why estimates of the aircraft’s thrust-to-weight ratio vary so widely. The commonly quoted range is about 0.93 with the AL-31 against roughly 1.01 to 1.07 with the WS-10B.

J-15 Variants: From the Original Flanker-X2 to the Catapult Jets

J-15

The baseline single-seat fighter, often given the NATO reporting name Flanker-X2. It is the ski-jump aircraft, flying from Liaoning and Shandong.

J-15S

The two-seat version, first flown on 3 November 2012 and in service from July 2022. It works as a trainer and strike fighter, and served as the basis for the twin-seat electronic warfare aircraft.

J-15T

The catapult-capable rebuild, and the most important variant flying today. It added a strengthened nose landing gear for catapult launch, WS-10 engines, new sensors including an active electronically scanned array radar, and compatibility with the PL-10 and PL-15 missiles.

It first flew in July 2016, was tested against both electromagnetic and steam catapults that November, and entered active service in October 2024. Earlier reporting often called it the J-15B.

J-15D, J-15DH and J-15DT

The electronic warfare aircraft, a twin-seater with the infrared search and track sensor removed to make room for jamming equipment. The J-15DH is the ski-jump version and the J-15DT is rigged for catapult carriers.

The role is broadly the American EA-18G Growler mission, with a likely secondary strike task. One real constraint is power: the pods photographed on the J-15DT draw electricity from the aircraft rather than from their own ram-air turbines, which may cap how hard they can jam.

Making Sense of the J-15’s Numbers

The full specification table for the aircraft is on this page, and a few of those figures are worth explaining rather than repeating, because they are the ones most often quoted against each other.

Maximum range and combat range are not the same measurement. The roughly 2,175-mile (3,500 km) figure in the panel is a ferry-style maximum, while the published combat range is about 789 miles (1,270 km), and an anti-ship profile with heavy external stores will cut endurance further still.

Top speed is usually quoted as Mach 2.17 at altitude, a unit the specification panel does not store, so the panel carries the equivalent in knots instead. The published figures are presented as estimates rather than released specifications, which is the honest state of public knowledge for this aircraft.

The payload figure is external stores across twelve hardpoints, not a weight the aircraft can lift off any deck. That distinction is the central fact of J-15 operations: a ski-jump launch trades fuel or weapons for the ability to get airborne at all, which is exactly the constraint the catapult-equipped J-15T was built to remove.

Where the J-15 Flies From

The J-15 operates from all three Chinese carriers plus Lingshui Air Base in the South China Sea. Liaoning and Shandong both use ski-jump ramps, so their aircraft live with the payload penalty described above.

Fujian changed that. Commissioned on 5 November 2025 at Sanya, it displaces 80,000 to 85,000 tonnes and launches aircraft with three medium-voltage direct-current electromagnetic catapults, the first such system fitted to a carrier.

On 22 September 2025 the navy released footage of J-15T, J-35 and KJ-600 aircraft completing catapult launches and arrested landings aboard Fujian, which it presented as proof that the catapult and arresting gear worked with multiple aircraft types. If you want the wider picture of how these ships compare, we cover that in our look at US and Chinese aircraft carriers.

The clearest sign of what the catapult buys came on 9 July 2026, when imagery showed a J-15T leaving Fujian carrying four YJ-83K anti-ship missiles, roughly 6,400 pounds of ordnance before fuel or air-to-air weapons. That is double the number previously seen on a J-15, though the image’s exact date was not formally verified.

State-media analysts quoted in April 2026 expected Fujian to reach full operational capability by the end of 2026, once it can sustain flight operations with a complete air wing of roughly 50 to 60 aircraft. That remains an expectation rather than an achieved milestone as of September 2026.

How Many J-15s China Has

The International Institute for Strategic Studies counts 116 or more J-15s built. Its Military Balance 2026 lists 60 J-15s, more than 50 J-15Ts and six J-15Ds in PLA Naval Air Force service.

The balance of that fleet is the story. The catapult-capable J-15T has gone from first flight to near-parity with the original ski-jump aircraft in about a decade, and the J-15D electronic warfare jets remain a small specialist force.

For context on how many aircraft a carrier actually embarks, see our explainer on how many planes fit on an aircraft carrier.

Armament

The J-15 carries a single 30 mm GSh-30-1 cannon with 150 rounds, plus stores on twelve external hardpoints. Air-to-air weapons run from the short-range PL-8 and PL-10 to the PL-12 and the long-range PL-15, with the PL-15 tied to the J-15T and J-15D.

The anti-ship fit is what makes the aircraft matter to a carrier strike group. It includes the YJ-83K cruise missile and the KD-88 standoff land-attack missile, and in February 2026 a carrier-based J-15 was photographed carrying the newer YJ-15 supersonic anti-ship missile.

Crashes and the Cost of Learning Carrier Aviation

Building a carrier air arm from nothing has had a human price, and China has been unusually public about parts of it.

Two J-15s were lost in April 2016 in separate accidents. In the first, a flight control failure sent the aircraft into the sea and pilot Cao Xianjian ejected too low for his parachute to deploy fully, leaving him severely injured.

In the second, on 27 April 2016, a flight control malfunction pitched the aircraft up to 80 degrees during a simulated landing. Pilot Zhang Chao ejected below the altitude his parachute needed and later died of his injuries. He was posthumously awarded the First Class Order of Heroic Exemplar that November.

Not every incident ended badly. In July 2017 a J-15 suffered a left engine fire after a bird strike shortly after takeoff, and the pilot, Yuan Wei, landed the aircraft safely with ground crews putting out the fire.

The most recent publicly reported loss was on 15 March 2025, when a J-15 came down near Jialai Town in Hainan. The pilot ejected and no one was hurt, and the cause was under investigation at the time of reporting.

The J-15 Against the Super Hornet

The comparison that follows the J-15 everywhere is with the US Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and it is worth separating the claims from the evidence.

A 2011 China SignPost analysis argued the J-15 likely matches or exceeds the aerodynamic performance of virtually any fighter operated by regional militaries except the F-22, crediting it with roughly 10 percent better thrust-to-weight and 25 percent lower wing loading than the Super Hornet. One of that piece’s own authors later described the aircraft as no game changer.

The most useful assessment came from the J-15’s chief designer. Sun Cong argued the aircraft could challenge the Super Hornet on bomb load, combat radius and manoeuvrability, while acknowledging that its electronics and combat systems needed improvement.

The aircraft has also had close encounters with other air forces. Japan said J-15s from Liaoning locked fire-control radars onto Japanese F-15s near the Miyako Strait on 6 December 2025, the second time for around half an hour, and described it as the first time it had publicly accused Chinese military aircraft of doing so.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many J-15s does China have?

The Military Balance 2026 lists 60 J-15s, more than 50 catapult-capable J-15Ts and six J-15D electronic warfare aircraft in service with the PLA Naval Air Force. Total production is given as 116 or more aircraft.

What is the J-15 based on?

It is based on the Sukhoi Su-33, specifically the T-10K-3, an unfinished prototype that China acquired from Ukraine in 2001 after failing to agree a purchase of finished Su-33s from Russia. The avionics, however, came from China’s own J-11B program rather than from Russia.

How much does a J-15 cost?

The commonly cited figure is at least $61 million per aircraft, reported by the South China Morning Post citing Chinese military commentator Zhou Chenming. China does not publish official unit costs, so treat this as an outside estimate rather than a confirmed price.

What is the J-15’s top speed?

Published estimates put it at Mach 2.17, about 1,429 mph (2,300 km/h) at altitude. The specification set for this aircraft is presented as estimated rather than official, so treat the figure as an estimate.

What generation of fighter is the J-15?

It is generally described as a 4.5-generation multirole fighter. The J-15T sharpens that claim with an active electronically scanned array radar and PL-15 missile compatibility, while the fifth-generation carrier aircraft in Chinese service is the J-35 rather than any J-15 variant.

Can the J-15 fly from a catapult carrier?

The original J-15 cannot, but the J-15T can. It was rebuilt with a strengthened nose landing gear for catapult launch and now operates from Fujian, whose electromagnetic catapults let it launch with far heavier fuel and weapon loads than a ski-jump ramp allows.

Is the J-15 better than the F/A-18 Super Hornet?

Chinese assessments claim advantages in thrust-to-weight and wing loading, and the type’s own chief designer conceded that its electronics and combat systems lagged. No public combat record exists to settle the question, so any comparison rests on estimated figures rather than results.

Is the F-35 better than the J-20?

That comparison sits outside the J-15’s world, since both are land-based or short-takeoff stealth fighters rather than conventional carrier aircraft. Public comparisons of the two rely on estimates rather than demonstrated results, and you can read more about the Chengdu J-20 on its own page.

Is the J-10 better than the F-16?

The J-10 is a separate program from the J-15 and has no carrier role. As with the J-20 and F-35, public comparisons against the F-16 rest on estimated performance rather than combat results, and we cover the wider fleet in our guide to the best Chinese fighter jets.