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PLAAF makes major reforms to fast-jet pilot training

18th March 2021 - 12:00 GMT | by Trevor Nash in Holsworthy

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The PLAAF has introduced changes to the fast-jet pilot training curriculum and added a new advanced trainer — but major shortcomings persist.

The China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), part of the USAF Air University, published a paper in February that highlights significant changes in how the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) conducts its fast-jet pilot training.

Derek Solen, the CASI analyst who wrote the paper, stated that the PLAAF suffered from three major fast-jet pilot training problems in the early 2010s: the lack of a suitable advanced jet trainer to prepare pilots for fourth-generation combat aircraft; the fact that it took ten years to train a fast-jet pilot; and a curriculum which ‘utterly failed to prepare pilot candidates for combat’.

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