First flight of J-31

Shenyang Aircraft Corporation's stealth aircraft project J-31's prototype made its first flight yesterday. Here are some of the better photos that I saw online:


This is probably the best photo I've seen of J-31


This one has J-31 prototype with J-11BS chase aircraft


At this point, I'm not sure what the exact plan for this project is. That's something we will find out further down the road, but speculations include a future naval fighter jet or form part of hi-lo combo with J-20 or as a aircraft that will eventually be up for exports.

I've read numerous people who believe that this is result of China hacking into Lockmart computers. This is due to the fact that J-31 resembles F-35 from front profile and F-22 from side profile. I think that's complete nonsense. I've seen the struggles of SAC trying to indigenize flankers (which they received full blue prints + production line in the license production deal). It's very hard for me to believe that SAC can reproduce F-35 from stolen files without access to the same engines or the material or the complicated computer code that controls the whole aircraft.