Attack-11 Fires PL-15: China’s Loyal Wingman Emerges

The smoking gun has just surfaced online. Screenshots circulating on the internet show a People's Liberation Army Attack-11 'Xuanlong' ('Mysterious Dragon') UAV firing a PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile.

Attack-11 fires PL-15: stealth striker turned air combatant.

The Smoking Gun

Outside observers had already connected the dots. Judging from public models, airshow displays and related information, they had concluded that the Attack-11 can carry air-to-air missiles and perform air combat missions. These images, at minimum, corroborate that assessment at the evidentiary level.

The real significance runs deeper. The disclosure signals that the Attack-11's mission orientation is no longer limited to the traditional role of exploiting its own stealth for air-to-ground and anti-ship strikes. The drone is beginning to evolve into an air combat platform with manned-unmanned cooperative combat capability.

The Attack-11 UAV first stepped into public view at the 2019 National Day military parade. The AVIC 601 Institute developed the aircraft, and Hongdu Aviation Industry Group produces it.

The airframe is a pure tailless flying wing, with no conventional vertical stabilizer or horizontal tail. Stack on stealth coatings, internal weapons bays, stealthy intakes and treated engine exhaust nozzles, and the aircraft delivers superb infrared and radar stealth.

The spec sheet is compact but telling. According to relevant materials, the Attack-11 is 12.2 meters long and 2.7 meters high, with a wingspan of 14.4 meters. Its frontal radar cross-section measures less than 0.01 square meters. A single small turbofan engine drives the drone at high subsonic speed, out to a maximum range of 4,000 kilometers.

A frontal radar cross-section of less than 0.01 square meters means the aircraft shows up on an adversary's radar screen almost like a small bird or a faint patch of clutter. That amounts to extremely strong low observability.

Combine that with the favorable aerodynamics of the tailless flying wing, the Attack-11 can sustain a long cruise radius without ever engaging its afterburner. It can slip deep into an opponent's defense zones and remain hard to detect. That is the foundation for executing a wide range of high-risk missions.

Hidden bays carry air-to-ground or air-to-air — stealth preserved .

The Arsenal Inside: Internal Bays, Flexible Loadouts and the PL-15's Reach

The Attack-11 plays in a different league. Measured against the Attack-1, Attack-2 and Attack-3, unmanned attackers defined mainly by integrated reconnaissance and strike, it clearly belongs to a higher class of unmanned combat platform. Stealth lets it slip deep into an opponent's defenses for reconnaissance, precision ground strikes, suppression of enemy air defenses and anti-ship operations. Data links then tie it to manned fighters, letting it join air combat missions as their 'loyal wingman.'

The real firepower hides in its belly. Two internal weapons bays on the underside of the fuselage can be loaded with multiple types of weapons to match the Attack-11's multi-mission profile. Public information so far points to a strike and anti-ship loadout of six small-diameter precision-guided glide bombs plus one heavy precision-guided glide bomb, or eight medium precision-guided glide bombs. For air-to-air missions, each of the two internal bays carries a single PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile.

The internal bays do double duty. They guarantee the munitions load while keeping externally mounted weapons from wrecking the stealth shape. That gives the Attack-11 a sound balance between firepower and stealth.

The missile itself deserves a closer look. The PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile was developed and produced by China Airborne Missile Academy(CAMA). Public data describe a round 4 meters long, 203 millimeters in diameter and 210 kilograms in weight. It runs a dual-pulse solid rocket motor, reaches a maximum range of 200 to 300 kilometers, and carries a fragmentation warhead fitted with a radio proximity fuze.

The guidance system stacks layer upon layer. The missile applies a composite regime of 'inertial guidance plus BeiDou satellite guidance plus two-way data-link correction plus active radar terminal guidance.' Its active electronically scanned array radar seeker brings formidable detection and anti-jamming capability, a low probability of signal interception and a strong element of surprise. The dual-pulse motor design adds a second ignition in midcourse flight, stretching the PL-15's effective range. High terminal kinetic energy persists at medium-to-long distance, keeping the no-escape zone large.

Those specifications put it at the front of the pack. The technical benchmark ranks among the leaders in the international family of comparable air-to-air missiles. In overall performance it stands level with new-generation medium-range missiles such as the US-made AIM-120D, and some key parameters tilt further in its favor. That gives the Attack-11 a reliable munitions foundation for beyond-visual-range air combat.

One Fighter, Three Drones: Manned-Unmanned Teaming Goes Operational

In actual combat, the Attack-11 unmanned aerial vehicle carrying PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missiles teams up with advanced domestic two-seat fighters such as the J-20 and J-16 for manned-unmanned cooperative operations. CCTV's earlier public footage has already confirmed the arrangement.

CCTV's official briefing lays out the formula: one J-20 or J-16 fighter coordinates with three Attack-11 drones simultaneously in combat.

Teamed with stealth drones, fighters see farther, strike deeper.

The division of labor is sharp. The manned fighter handles battlefield situation assessment, mission authorization and core decision-making. The Attack-11 drones shoulder the high-risk work: firepower strikes, electronic support, decoying and reconnaissance.

That split frees the manned fighter from stacking every task onto its own platform. Datalinks pull the Attack-11 into a larger combat network, further widening the sensing range and firepower coverage of the friendly air combat system. The edge matters most against high-value airborne targets such as large enemy electronic warfare aircraft, transports, early warning planes and tankers.

With the Attack-11 scouting ahead and pushing firepower forward, manned jets can lock onto and strike enemy soft-spot targets at greater range. Valuable pilots no longer have to run major risks punching through an opponent's defenses.

Zoom out, and 'loyal wingman'-style manned-unmanned teaming is exactly the direction the world's major military powers are now exploring. The United States is advancing concepts that pair stealth drones such as the XQ-58A "Valkyrie" with manned fighters. Several European countries run similar cooperative combat programs.

China, by contrast, has taken the idea off the drawing board. CCTV's public footage, airshow displays and this live-fire launch screenshot show the country has pushed this form of operations from conceptual vision to actual application.

That leap reflects the overall progress of China's aviation industry across drone platforms, datalinks, sensors and munitions systems. It also signals that this combat system has reached considerable maturity.

The New Shape of Air Combat: From Manned Platforms to System Confrontation

So the real significance of this footage of a Attack-11 launching a PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile is not the confirmation of a long-standing claim. The footage matters because it spotlights a shift in the very shape of the air force's future air combat.

In the past, the core of the air force's air combat still revolved around the contest for air superiority, with manned fighters at its heart.

In the future, the roles split. Manned fighters will command and decide, while drones take on tasks such as forward firepower strikes, electronic warfare, and reconnaissance. Multiple advanced unmanned combat aircraft can even join together into distributed operational nodes that support the manned fighters, boosting the air force's combat effectiveness.

This shift from 'manned platform at the center' to 'manned-plus-unmanned system confrontation' is likely to become an important direction in the evolution of the future air combat landscape.

The Art of Stopping War

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The outside world learned of it late. On September 4, the Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China released the information, and only then did people learn this low-key meeting had taken place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Chiefs of Defense Conference in Victoria, Canada. 

General Yang Zhibin, commander of the Eastern Theater Command, and Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, had just completed their first face-to-face closed-door bilateral meeting.

Yang and Paparo: Chinese, US theater commanders hold closed-door Canada talks.

No advance briefings or warm-up. By the time the news went public, the sit-down between the two top frontline commanders was already an accomplished fact.

This meeting carried real weight. Yang Zhibin runs the Eastern Theater Command, the force that stares directly at the Taiwan Strait hotspot. Paparo, for his part, oversees US military deployments across the entire western Pacific. Both men are directly tied to the ship-and-aircraft standoffs and air-and-sea frictions that have flared repeatedly around the Taiwan Strait in recent years.

As the two officers responsible for this most sensitive front line, they sat down face to face for the first time. The significance spoke for itself.

Roll the clock back a few years, and direct communication between the two militaries at the theater-command level had gone dark. In the wake of then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan, China suspended three major military communication channels: talks between Chinese and US theater commanders, Defense Policy Coordination Talks between the two defense ministries, and meetings under the China-US Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA).

For a stretch after that, air and naval forces from both sides crossed paths at close range across the western Pacific with striking frequency. The two forces operated practically on top of each other, yet frontline commanders had no window for direct communication. A small tactical friction, paired with an information blackout, carried a real risk of being magnified into strategic miscalculation.

Since then, the two militaries have repaired their communication step by step. Commanders from the Southern Theater Command met with Paparo first by video and later in person, mainly to handle South China Sea issues. But for the Taiwan Strait, the highest-risk zone in the Indo-Pacific, the face-to-face link between theater commanders stayed vacant throughout. The closed-door talks in Canada count as finally patching that gap.

A Hardliner’s Pragmatic Bottom Line

This time, the US side was relatively direct. It disclosed simultaneously the key points to the outside world as soon as the talks ended.

The core consensus between the two sides came down to two points. First, keep high-level communication channels continuously open. Second, push the two militaries' air and naval forces to follow safe and professional codes of conduct, so as to minimize the probability that miscalculation erupts into conflict.

In effect, the US side laid its cards on the table: the competition will continue, but it does not want accidental friction sliding into a hot war.

Paparo is nobody's dove. His past remarks on China have been consistently tough. He is the admiral who declared, "I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities," and the talk of dominance in the Indo-Pacific also traces back to him. Many regard him as a representative hardliner on China.

But he clearly understands what the lack of direct, effective communication mechanisms means in the western Pacific, a stretch of sea where Chinese and US forces operate in dense numbers. In this meeting, he reached consensus with the Chinese side on maintaining high-level communication and reducing the risk of miscalculation. 

Frequent Pacific encounters raise miscalculation risks.

Objectively, that consensus also reflects the US recognition that without effective crisis management, once air and sea frictions escalate, the trajectory of the situation would be extremely difficult for the US side to control unilaterally.

Bolting a communication "safety guardrail" onto tensions that could escalate at any moment, so as to avoid an accidental exchange of fire, is a realistic need both sides share.

But one point must be made clear: restored communication does not mean the differences have disappeared, and risk management is not the same as compromising positions. Dialogue exists to "prevent accidents," not to resolve the fundamental contradictions of the Taiwan Strait.

Standing mechanisms of the past, such as the China-US Maritime Military Safety Consultations, focused on lowering the probability of accidental conflict. The resumption of face-to-face contact at the theater commander level now reinforces, on top of that existing framework, the highest-level direct line to the front. 

Restoring a mechanism at this tier fills the most glaring gap of the past two years: when the two sides' forces confronted each other at close range in sensitive waters, precisely when direct commander intervention was needed most, a dialogue window was missing for a time.

Reopening frontline communication is, in essence, fitting a "fuse" to the zone with the highest friction risk. Above the First Island Chain, the US military is still pushing intermediate-range missile deployments and tightening coordination with allies. The PLA's combat readiness patrols around Taiwan and its routine air and maritime rights protection operations will not stop because of this. 

What communication builds is a "firewall." It cannot change the reality of strategic rivalry between the two sides, and it will not change the nature of the Taiwan Strait issue in any way.

The Firewall That Cannot Reshape the Contest

The biggest risk point between China and the United States has always been the Taiwan issue. China regards it as the core of its core interests.

If the US side sits down to talk about communication and stability while continuing to play so-called 'edge ball' on the Taiwan issue, such communication can hardly be called sincere and cannot truly mitigate risks. Arms sales to Taiwan keep moving forward. Official exchanges keep expanding. Military exercises around China's periphery are held frequently.

Genuine positive interaction requires the US side to earnestly abide by the One-China principle. It must deliver on its commitment to control 'Taiwan independence.' It must stop sending wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' forces. Otherwise, a few meetings alone cannot eliminate the hidden dangers in the Taiwan Strait situation.

The meeting stayed low-key throughout. No media buildup. No public relations performance. That restraint was itself a pragmatic choice.

Both sides understand the meeting's value is not publicity. It lies in being a buffer valve for frontline maritime and air confrontations. If an emergency erupts at sea or in the air, at least a communication channel remains to prevent small incidents from turning into major chaos.

PLA advances maritime power, asserting rights at sea.

Zoom out, and the broader picture is clear. Military deterrence keeps ratcheting up on one side. High-level frontline meetings are being resumed on the other to manage risk. That is the true shape of today's China-US military contest.

China is firm in safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time it rationally manages crises and prevents the situation from being hijacked by unexpected events. Running deterrence and risk control in parallel is the realistic logic that should govern interactions between responsible major countries.