GoldenDragon:
I thought a recent story on Guangzhou was about a Chinese-made J-11 squadron in the 2nd Division, not SU-30. But I could be mistaken.

First I’ve heard about a J-11 regiment in the 2nd Division. It would be quite a departure from the way the PLAAF upgrades to have a second Flanker regiment in a division when there are regiment that still need to be upgraded from J-6s or &-7s. Can’t think of any division that has two regiments of the most modern aircraft when other divisions are lacking. You could make the argument for the 1st Div as they have J-11s, J-8IIs, and J-7Es. But even there, there are not 2 regiments with the same type of aircraft.

Having said all that, anything is possible. Curious as to the source of your info on the J-11 regiment in the 2nd Division.

From Google in the Velly Interesting news re: J-11s in PLAAF service thread

Today’s JDW has said that the “Sukhoi and the Technocomplex group of Russian avionics companies” have already delivered 100 upgrade kits over the past 2 years to the PLAAF to upgrade them to the Su-27SM standard, which was just recently seen at MAKS 2003.

I’ve been trying to sort this out. Given the upgrade kits reportedly supplied two years ago for the Chinese SK’s and given the recent report that Sukhoi is trying to sell this SKU/SMK upgrade just a few days ago, what gives?

What were the kits supplied by Technocomplex? Did they really upgrade to the SM variant or was it some other upgrade? Janes says the Su-27SM is a mid-life upgrade parallel to the Su-27UBM. Does that fit in with what you now know?

If I understand this correctly, there are now SMK and SKM variants or is this really the same variant?

Most of the J-7s and J-6s are just virtually “training” fighters now

This may be true of the older models but the J-7E is being used as an interceptor, especially by the PLANAF. The J-7Es at Luqiao regularly intercept US recon flights. Looking at the deployment of the J-7s, they are put in position where they likely would not have to engage an enemy but would if needed. If the PLAAF didn’t intend to use the J-7s in combat if needed I think they would simply phase them out. There is no reason to maintain pilot proficiency if it know that pilot will never be used in combat. No matter how outdated the plane, you don’t waste money keeping it flying if you aren’t willing to fight with it.

In the currentl training program the basic jet fighter is the JL-8 and then the pilots move on to the JJ-7 and then J-7. It is likely the JL-9 will replace both planes and allow the pilots to go from the JL-8, JL-9, and then to the final plane they will fly.

I seem to remember seeing an Su-27 photo in US Navy colors. I’ll try to find it but I usually don’t keep anything in US colors laying around. Just clogs up my harddrive…..:D