Military training command says it has been ordered to provide ‘full-scale, realistic aircraft and vehicle mock-ups for multiple Marine Corps bases’Focus on Chinese stealth fighter shows how seriously Washington is taking the potential threat from Beijing, expert says
The United States has built a full-size replica of a Chinese fighter jet for use as a training aid, according to official US military sources, a move analysts said reflects Washington’s growing concern over the fighting strength of its Asian rival.
The mock-up of a Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon was spotted at a military facility on the perimeter of Savannah-Hilton Head Airport in Georgia, which is home to the US Air Dominance Centre (ADC), and photographs of it, said to have been taken on December 5, were published two days later by the website TheAviationist.com.
While sceptics initially questioned the authenticity of the images, the military blog site quoted Colonel Emmanuel Haldopoulos, the commander of the ADC, as saying the mock-up plane “is a full-scale replica and remained at the Air Dominance Centre for a short period” from December 4-6.
The US Marine Corps was “funding and directing the training objectives of this device”, he said, adding that the replica would be used for ground training.
On Friday, the Marine Corps Training and Education Command (TECOM) was quoted in a statement published by military newspaper Marine Corps Times as saying it was “contracted with the Army Threat Systems Management Office to provide full-scale, realistic aircraft and vehicle mock-ups for multiple Marine Corps bases”, and that “the prototype was built by a contractor in LaGrange”.
