The J-10 fighter plane gets thrust vector control, a technology that allows for wild acrobatic aerial ɱaпeuvers.

China’s J-10 fighter is now equipped with thrust vectoring controls that allow the jet to perform seemingly impossible aerial ɱaпeuvers. This long-rumored upgrade to a well-known jet fighter made its debut at the Zhuhai Air Show.

The Chengdu J-10 “Vigorous Dragon” is a single-engine fighter developed for China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (the Chinese air force). The J-10 falls in the same general category as the American F-16, and the two planes even share the same DNA, as the Chinese jet was built with Israeli assistance from Israel’s F-16-based Lavi fighter. However, in some technological respects, China’s plane is about fifteen years behind the F-16 platform, and even further behind modern fighters like the F-35.

Even so, the J-10 now has something the F-16 does not: thrust vectoring control capability that pushes its ɱaпeuverability into the stratosphere. The jet is able to steer its exhaust, allowing it to point its nose in one direction but actually propel itself in another.

In traditional airplanes, the direction of the engines dictate the direction of the aircraft. Engines are pointed forward, so airplanes goes forward. Pilots use traditional control systems—rudders, elevators, flaps, ailerons, and brakes—to point the plane where they want to go.

The X-31 technology demonstrator. Note thrust vectoring paddles on the tail mounted behind the engine exhaust.

Gerard Julien//Getty Images

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Thrust vectoring control (TVC) turns this idea on its head. Pioneered in the U.S. in the early 1990s, TVCs change the direction of the engine exhaust, making it possible to travel in a direction other than where the engine (and plane) is actually pointed.

The result might be a plane that appears to suddenly jerk in midair, rise like a dragon, slow to a relative crawl, or perform some other impossible-looking aerial ɱaпeuver. Thanks to computer-controlled fly-by-wire technology that instantly turns a pilot’s control input into action, a pilot doesn’t have to perform complex calculations to get his plane to do what he wants to do. He simply does it, and the plane takes care of the rest.

Early on, this trick was accomplished with paddles that pushed into the engine exhaust to change the direction of thrust. Think of when you partially cover a garden hose nozzle with your thumb; the water still comes out, but in the opposite direction of the location of your thumb.

Modern thrust vectoring technology employs a movable thrust nozzle in place of the paddles. Using this technology, the F-22 Raptor can angle its thrust up to 24 degrees up or down. Russia began incorporating TVC into the Sukhoi Su-30 and the newer Su-35. It’s also a feature of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter. In 2017, the Su-35 performed head-exploding aerial ɱaпeuvers at an air show on the outskirts of Moscow thanks to TVC. Now China’s J-10 joins this elite club of super-ɱaпeuverable fighter jets.

Thrust vectoring in action: Note the path of the smoke versus the direction the aircraft nose is pointed in.

Getty Images

For months, there have been reports out of China that Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, the developer of the J-10, was working on a TVC exhaust system for the single-engine fighter. A photograph of a J-10 with TVC emerged in January 2018, but no formal announcement was made. Finally, the TVC-equipped J-10B made its debut yesterday sporting a movable nozzle. Instead of using a thumb to control the direction of water, this garden hose pivots the entire nozzle.

According to FlightGlobal, the J-10B at the Zhuhai Air Show performed “tight vertical loops, a slow, high angle of attack roll, a cobra ɱaпeuver, and the falling leaf.” Popular Mechanics covered some of these ɱaпeuvers in 2017 when a Russian Su-35 Flanker-E fighter performed them at the Zhukovsky Air Show.

The big question is where Chinese TVC goes from here. Although the U.S. tested such technology in the early 90s, it didn’t add the technology to later versions of the F-15, Super Hornet, or F-16, or even the F-35. Although TVC is useful, you can pile on only so ɱaпy capabilities for a fighter, and U.S. ɱaпufacturers haven’t prioritized TVC.

China’s latest jets, the FC-31 and J-20, don’t have TVC and likely won’t ever have it. But even if TVC doesn’t make it onto future planes, Chinese aviation can claim that it can keep up with the pace of technological innovation set by Russia and the West.

Kyle Mizokami

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he’s generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.