For what it's worth, I noticed Scramble's China orbat now lists only two frontline units operating combat J-8. There are some mentioned in the test and training bases and, of course, several units operating recon variants on top of those. But it seems entirely plausible there's barely 50 combat J-8 remaining in use, with possibly close to that number of recon variant airframes. So it may be just a year or so before we see more recon J-8s remaining than combat ones. Usually having just one brigade of planes would mean entire type would be retired, as maintenance overheads for just one unit would be too big - but given there are still dozens of recon types flying as well, with J-8 that may not be the case. But retirement of combat airframes by year 2022 or so does seem very likely.