On October 12, a CG picture of a J-20 fighter jet commanding three attack-11 drones appeared in a program broadcast on CCTV Defense Military Channel, which means that the future J-20 stealth combat opportunity cooperates with drones to fight, and the Attack-11 is the "loyal wingm

On October 12, a CG picture of a J-20 fighter jet commanding three attack-11 drones appeared in a program broadcast on CCTV Defense Military Channel, which means that in the future, the J-20 stealth fighter will cooperate with the drone attack aircraft, and the attack-11 is the "loyal wingman" of the J-20. Once the program was broadcast, it immediately attracted the attention of the American media and conducted in-depth reports on our future "loyal wingman".

US Military Watch website reported that new lenses of China Central Video Channel confirmed that Chinese Air Force may fight the J-20 stealth fighter with flying wing drones in the future, which confirms people's previous speculation about China's "loyal wingman" project.

US media believes that the J-20 two-seater fighter will be unveiled in October 2021. This fighter can lead the Attack-11 drone to conduct coordinated operations, greatly improving the Chinese Air Force's air and ground attack capabilities. Unlike other two-seater fighters, the main function of the J-20 added a seat is to command drones to operate coordinated operations rather than train new pilots or operate onboard weapons systems. US media pointed out that the use of drone wingman will be a typical feature of the sixth-generation fighter, but China's two-seater J-20 fighter opportunity has obtained this capability ahead of schedule, while the United States' F-35 and F-22 fighter have no two-seater improvement plans, and will gradually lag behind China in the field of unmanned combat.

"Loyal Wingman" concept is a verification project proposed by US Air Force Research Laboratory in 2-15. The specific goals include providing efficient and flexible autonomous system for human-machine formations, realizing collaborative formations of multiple aircraft models, ensuring combat in complex confrontation environments, and execution efficiency and high reliability in unknown dynamic environments. The project aims to reduce equipment costs and personnel risks by using low-cost combat drones to serve as wingman for fifth-generation aircraft and improve the coordinated combat capabilities of the US Air Force manned and drones. At present, the United States has developed the XQ-58A "Valkyrie" stealth drone. This drone will mainly fight with F-35 fighter jets in the future. However, the current US "Loyal Wingman" plan has many technical problems and cannot be truly deployed in a short period of time. Although my country's "Loyal Wingman" project started late, from the perspective of specific progress, my country's "Loyal Wingman" project has been developed more solidly.

US media believes that China's attack-11 drone adopts the flying wing aerodynamic layout , which has better stealth capabilities than the J-20 fighter. However, the flight speed and maneuverability of this drone are relatively limited, making it difficult to exert the full combat effectiveness of the human fighter . However, after the attack-11 is connected to the J-20 stealth fighter, it can not only perform ground attack tasks, but also perform over-visual air combat missions, greatly improving the J-20 fighter's air-to-ground attack capabilities.

US media believes that the Attack-11 drone has two large built-in bomb bays, which can not only carry multiple precision guided bombs , but also carry Pili-XX and Pili-15 air-to-air missiles , significantly increasing the air defense firepower of the Chinese Air Force. In the eyes of US media, Pili-XX is an ultra-long-range air-to-air missile with a range of 500 kilometers. Its main attack targets are large and high-value targets such as the enemy's early warning aircraft , tanker, bomber , and it is the most dangerous air-to-air missile in the world; Pili-15 is the main air combat weapon of the J-20 fighter. This missile is equipped with an advanced active phased array radar seeker, with a maximum range of 250 kilometers. It is currently the most excellent long-range air-to-air missile in the world. In terms of flight parameters, the maximum range of the Attack-11 drone reaches 4,000 kilometers, the combat radius is 1,500 kilometers, and the maximum flight speed is 0.9 Mach. In addition to the flight speed, the flight performance parameters are basically the same as that of the J-20, and can be fully equipped with the J-20.

However, US media believes that attack-11 is not the most ideal "loyal wingman" of the J-20. The dark sword drone , which is being developed by China, is the most suitable drone.Compared with the Attack-11 drone, the Dark Sword drone can not only fly at supersonic speeds in , but also make complex maneuvers far exceed those of manned fighters, and is more suitable for coordinated air and ground combat with the J-20. In the future, a two-seater J-20 fighter can carry a bunch of advanced drones "brothers" and can conduct air combat, ground attacks and electronic suppression tasks at the same time, leaving the opponent with no power to fight back. Judging from the current progress, the J-20's "loyal wingman" will not be too far away for formal service.