Welcome back to this week's lowdown. I'm John Waters, former Air Force fighter pilot, bringing the latest in defense and aerospace news. Today, we're covering China's new J20S. That's the family model, the two-seat version of their stealth fighter. Kind of looks like a raptor, in my opinion, but neither here nor there. Quantum sensing threats. That's some science going on, espionage arrests, the whole debacle around the E7 wedge tail, and a whole bunch more. With that being said, make sure you check out the lowdown newsletter. You can click the link down below, subscribe. It's absolutely free. Won't spam you, but each and every week, you get these little nugget bombs. So check out the lowdown newsletter down below. But with that being said, let's jump into it. So first, China's J20, the S variant, the family model, the two-seat guy.

It's now operational and it's landed in the PLA Air Force.

And this is a fifth generation fighter that now has a weapon systems officer on board, a WISO.

Now, there is some speculation that, hey, this could be a trainer version.

My opinion that this probably is not a trainer now in today's age

with sim technology and just the advancements in training to begin with producing a fifth generation

fighter that has two seats purely for a training i.e. having an instructor in the back with a brand new

fighter pile on the front learning that doesn't seem like it makes a whole lot of sense now that being said

like i mean i guess

who knows this is an assumption on my part and i think there are a lot of experts out there that are

also saying the same thing now having a whizzo in a platform such as the j20s i think expands the

capability and the bounds of what that platform is capable of when we start talking about collaborative wingmen or autonomous wingmen or loyal wingmen,

whatever you want to call them, if you have a person in the backseat that is able to control

the air fight or whatever type fight with a series of loyal wingmen, run electronic warfare,

run airborne command and control, it really enhances the capability and just the reach that platform can have.

So there you can see the primed up painted version of the cockpit shot of the J20 with two pilots in it.

Now, this is laying outside of Beijing in the 1702nd, the second Air Brigade or Air Brigade,

you know, plus my, this brigade is responsible for advanced training so i'm thinking b-core style

the follow-on training from pilot training onto a major weapon system such as f-16 f-22 f-35

as well as this squadron serves as a combat reserve the way i interpret that is hey you got combat fighter

pilots that are now teaching, you got combat fighter pilots

that are now teaching the next crop of fighter pilots coming up. And yeah, sure, if the flag goes

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