Chinese aircraft are a mixed story. Historically, the country has operated and sold a variety of legacy aircraft that can be charitably termed “inadequate”. But in recent years, this has been changing, with considerable resources provided to create a series of fourth and fifth generation aircraft.

The most obvious manifestation of this change was the recent unveiling of the J-20, touted as a stealth, fifth-generation design with almost no rationale for either claim. Previously referred to by the US military as the J-XX, the J-20 entered service in early 2018, if only in theory. Its appearance also offers no evidence that China has developed the key enabling technologies for modern fighters. The only thing we know is that its airframe looks modern, compared with other Chinese designs. But it’s very difficult to reconcile large moving canards with low observability.

Europe currently represents the third largest UAV market. While quite a bit of research has been funded in Europe over the past dec­ade, procurement has been very mod­est and mostly confined to modest numbers of tactical UAV systems. More ambitious programs are now underway, with most of the major armed forces acquiring more modern tactical UAV systems and beginning to acquire endurance systems compa­rable to the US Air Force Predator.

Northrop Grumman Corp. is well aligned with the national security strategy. The company’s strengths in strategic bombers, ICBMs, and unmanned aerial vehicles are critical capabilities as the US military focuses more on possible confrontation with major powers including China and Russia.

The Department of Defense released its latest round of selected acquisition reports and tucked away in their review of the biggest program in DoD history was an interesting footnote that said the F-35 is now expected to operate in US service until the year 2088. That’s 11 years later than previously expected.