What happens to these aircraft after they are retired? Storage, sold, dismantled, or abandoned?
The Q-5, J-7, J-8 and older PLAAF aircraft
- Thread starter adeptitus
- Start date
Most will be scuttled, some will be put into storage, lucky ones will go into museums, and unlucky ones will be turned into target drones. Many may be turned into wartime decoys ala unmanned J-6. None of them will be abandoned without removing engines/weapons/avionics.
I always hope some rich person will buy a J-7E and use it at airshows.
They should do as a the Azerbaijans did. Using old planes as drones to bait air defenses.
A squadron of F-7s loaded with bombs and ESM sensors flying high and fast towards Taipei would cause air defense operators to shot, not only revealing their position, but spending precious AA missiles to stop the threat.
A supersonic kamikaze drone is terrifying, but entire squadrons of them are nightmare fuel.
I wrote “wartime decoy aka unmanned J-6”.
Yes, I understood.
I just expanded the concept.
Some equipped with sensors to detect, recognize and pinpoint the radars locations and other full of bombs to slam against the SAM sites or other vital platforms.
That’s literally what unmanned J-6 does.
Also do keep in mind that it takes additional resources to keep legacy platforms flyable. You can perhaps maintain a couple dozen of these suicide jets, but once you go above lower three digits they are not worth the effort.
At least I haven‘t seen any
A retired J-7E with the serial number 69290 (cn. 0335) from the 88th Air Brigade at Dandong/Langtou (NTC),
It is interesting since there are reports, this unit converted in 2024 to J-11B/BS from the 89th Air Brigade at Dalian/Pulandian which in return converted to J-16.
(Image via @太湖军I名 from Weibo)
It is interesting since there are reports, this unit converted in 2024 to J-11B/BS from the 89th Air Brigade at Dalian/Pulandian which in return converted to J-16.
(Image via @太湖军I名 from Weibo)