CHINA'S AIR FORCE TRAINING is INTENSE but ...
The Chinese pilot training syllabus is surprising!
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LearningTranscript
00:00Now, here's some news, the best aircraft is the aircraft with the best pilot, period.
00:16So when we analyze the Chinese Air Force we can't overlook training and doctrine, otherwise
00:21we are missing the key piece of information.
00:29Like everything else in China, pilot's training syllabus is quickly evolving, and the Chinese
00:35are also quickly evolving their tactical and operational doctrine.
00:40But let's start from the beginning.
00:46A Chinese person may join the PLAAF because it has been recruited at school or because
00:51being enlisted he then applied for the position.
00:56In fact, the potential cadet is probably coming from a school where he or she was already
01:01noticed as a good prospect.
01:03However, in the last few years the Chinese are also accepting college and university
01:08students.
01:09In the same way, the Chinese Air Force used to be a predominantly Han force, but now is
01:14also accepting people coming from Chinese minorities.
01:19Between 1,000 and 1,300 cadets are recruited every year, and about 50% of them reaches
01:27the end of the training.
01:29The Chinese system is referred to as the 4-stage system, and it is also called 4 plus 1 plus
01:361, referring to the number of years that are actually required to complete the syllabus.
01:41The training starts with 4 years of academic formation at the PLAAF University in Changchun.
01:48During these years, the cadet starts almost immediately flying with the simulators, but
01:54the real flight has to wait the fourth year with piston engine trainers, and it's going
02:00to last for about 250 hours.
02:05After the university, the cadet is transferred to one of the three colleges for one or two
02:10years.
02:11Combat pilots fly on the JL-8 trainer, while bomber and transport pilots use different
02:18aircraft, and obviously helicopter pilots fly on helicopters.
02:23The flight duration in this stage is from 150 to 200 hours.
02:28In the following phase, lasting about one year, the pilot receives flight training and
02:33tactical training on his or her final operational aircraft.
02:38It is in this stage that a pilot may be selected to become a rear seat weapons control officer,
02:45basically the equivalent of the weapon system officers in western air forces.
02:49At the end of this phase, the cadet becomes a third grade pilot.
02:53In phase 4, lasting 6 months, the pilot receives further tactical training and, crucially,
02:59joint operations training.
03:02At the end of this stage, the pilot is finally assigned to the first operational unit.
03:11The Chinese doctrine has been for a long time even more rigid than the Soviet.
03:18Pilots were expected to closely follow a flight plan.
03:21They were expected to fire against the targets they were ordered to, when they were ordered
03:26to, with the weapons they were ordered to, by the ground controllers.
03:31This approach has proven several times to be ineffective and to be basically a waste
03:37of resources.
03:39In the late 90s and early 2000s, the entire Chinese military doctrine was subject to a
03:45revision.
03:46The focus shifted from a defensive, generalized, popular war to limited regional conflicts
03:52and limited power projections beyond the country borders.
03:58But this wasn't easy, this was actually a rough ride.
04:02Even the display of technology of the Gulf War in 1991 didn't seem to cause an immediate
04:11and radical shift.
04:12Please remember that the PLAAF is a branch of the Army, so while the value of attacking
04:17ground targets from the air was actually accepted, air combat and air superiority were a sort
04:23of an afterthought.
04:25The Chinese Air Force has been for a very long time just a support service.
04:30For most of the 90s, the most advanced training and doctrine institution of the PLAAF was
04:37the Flight Test and Training Center in Gansu.
04:40This unit's main task was to test aircraft, weapons integration, flight envelopes to extract
04:47the best from what was available.
04:50There was a very limited work going on on tactics or training.
04:55There were no particular studies either to improve the tactics or provide any form of
05:01realistic training.
05:03However, following the Western example, some experiments toward the end of the decade started
05:10using some units as aggressors.
05:13At the beginning they simulated Russian tactics, they were just more familiar with those, but
05:19then they moved on and they started simulating the Korean Air Force tactics or, in general,
05:25Western Air Force tactics.
05:27The key enabler for this change was an agreement with Russia to use the infrastructures available
05:33at Lipetsk Air Base.
05:36Lipetsk is the Russian equivalent of Nelys Air Force Base and, quite curiously, the activities
05:42that are going on there go under the name of Red Flag as well.
05:47It would be interesting to know which one was the original, to be honest.
05:51In 1999, a new structure was created at Dingsing, always under the name of Test and Training
06:00Center.
06:01Its original purpose was to test and evaluate the proposals that were coming from Kansu
06:06or from the grassroots, from the operational units.
06:11Accepting proposals from the grassroots may seem strange, but to their credit they effectively
06:15introduced a process for that.
06:17If the proposals were found useful and effective, they used to be formalized in manuals for
06:23the pilots, and the pilots were expected to learn and memorize every detail.
06:28But the real novelty about Dingsing was that all these activities were conducted in a high
06:33technology environment that was inspired by the American Red Flag.
06:38So Chinese units started to go to Dingsing, do their training, do their tests, do their
06:43activities, and the first results were a disaster.
06:49It became painfully clear that even against a Russian simulated opposition, the current
06:56tactics were totally inadequate.
07:00And furthermore it became clear that there was a large disparity of training and quality
07:07of the pilots within the PLAAF itself.
07:11So something radical had to be done.
07:18There is a fundamental difference between Russia and China when it comes to strategic
07:23thinking.
07:24Russia has embraced asymmetry as its doctrine of choice to respond to potential challenges.
07:30The Chinese Armed Forces and the PLAAF in particular have adopted a different strategy
07:36of matching the West, playing the same game, but with different hardware.
07:42So it is no wonder that a lot of Chinese hardware resembles the Western equivalents.
07:48But they are not copies, they are replicas.
07:52And they are replicas because they are built to fit into similar concepts.
07:58And among the things that the Chinese started to replicate, well, there was Red Flag.
08:04In fact, in the 21st century, the quality of training has been constantly improving.
08:10Dingxing base has grown in size and the technology has improved in parallel with the incredibly
08:18quick and large Chinese development.
08:21Since 2005, regular exercises take place at Dingxing, they are called the Red Sword, and
08:27they happen in a challenging environment, with high technology and a lot of data that
08:34can be analyzed after the fact.
08:36The size of Red Sword grew steadily from 20 aircraft at the beginning to about 100 today.
08:44And in this case there have been visible improvements, new tactics have been introduced, and even
08:48Red Sword became focused on air-to-ground operation, and Blue Sword was introduced for
08:55air combat and air superiority.
08:57Also the Golden Helmet competition was created to give the pilots the possibility of showing
09:03their capabilities in a free-form context.
09:07The analyst's opinion is that the Chinese have really moved away from their inflexible
09:12tactics and changed deeply.
09:15Then Falcon Strike 2015 happened.
09:22The Chinese have been training with foreign air forces for some time, the cooperation
09:26with Russia was very important and is still ongoing.
09:30In 2011 there is also a regular cooperation with Pakistan, there have been contacts with
09:36Turkey and so on.
09:38But in 2015 they went to Thailand for an exercise with the Royal Thai Air Force called Falcon
09:44Strike.
09:45Falcon Strike was a pretty realistic and unscripted war game where the Chinese J-11s clashed with
09:52the Thai Gripens.
09:54The first two days of the exercise were dedicated to within-visual-range engagements.
09:59This is the weak spot of the Gripen, but one of the strong points of the J-11, like
10:04all the members of the Flanker family.
10:07During these two days the Chinese won most of the engagements with a resounding 25-1.
10:14Then the exercise moved on to the main event.
10:17The two forces fought a simulated, unscripted air campaign where each party was allowed
10:23to use their weapons and their tactics freely, with no particular limitations, as there would
10:29do in a real conflict.
10:31And then everything changed.
10:34In the following four days the Thai Gripens shot down 41 J-11s for the loss of only three
10:44of their own.
10:45The Chinese took a while to elaborate the loss, but it seems to have been a healthy
10:50cold shower.
10:51In fact, in recent years a few Chinese analyses have emerged and they were pointing the finger
10:57not at the aircraft, not at the weapons, not at the technology, but at the pilots training.
11:05The Chinese pilots did not pay enough attention to the environment around them, lack of situational
11:11awareness.
11:12They reacted very predictably to the threats, they were quite poor at evading missiles,
11:20they lacked coordination, and they were easy to lure into a trap.
11:24Since then, in various public occasions, PLAAF commanders have stated how tactics and training
11:31are the new focus of the service.
11:35Since then, the cooperation with other air forces has become even closer.
11:40Now we are in 2021, we don't know the situation, but we may expect that they sort of learned
11:46the lesson.
11:47And if you want to learn more about the situation of the Chinese air force, please watch the
11:53videos that are going to appear beside me.
11:56Thank you very much for watching and see you there!