A paper published last month in China’s top aviation journal, the peer-reviewed Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, reveals that the J-36 design team is in the early stages of making a naval variant suitable for use with the PLA Navy’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers. And like with other features like EMALS, the Chinese are copying the American military’s best practices and developing them at a rate far faster than that of the Pentagon’s procurement system. In this case they’re working on a computer system that will help pilots safely land on a moving aircraft carrier, something like the U.S. Navy’s precision landing mode or PLM used by carrier air wing Super Hornet and F-35C pilots.
