Xi'an JH-7
strike fighter aircraft
The Xi'an JH-7 (simplified Chinese: 歼轰-7; traditional Chinese: 殲轟-7; pinyin: jiān hōng qī – fighter-bomber; NATO reporting name Flounder), also known as the FBC-1 (Fighter/Bomber China-1) Flying Leopard, is a Chinese tandem two-seat, twin-engine fighter-bomber/strike aircraft in service with the People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF), and the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The aircraft is produced by the Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation (XAC); the design was developed with the 603 Institute (later the Xi'an Aviation Design and Research Institute).
The JH-7 entered service with the PLANAF in 1994. The JH-7A entered service with the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) in 2004.
Development history
JH-7
In the early 1970s, China started a program to replace the Nanchang Q-5 for the PLAAF and the PLANAF. XAC's proposal in November 1977 was for a large two-seat aircraft comparable to the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, Sukhoi Su-24, and Panavia Tornado. XAC intended to produce a variant for each end-user - the H-7 tactical bomber for the PLAAF and the JH-7 fighter-bomber for the PLANAF - to accommodate the differing requirements. By 1980, XAC was still attempting to find an acceptable baseline for both. The program began to receive lower priority. The Falklands War renewed interest in a naval fighter-bomber; in November 1982, the JH-7 became the main focus of development with the H-7 eventually being cancelled. In 1983, the Rolls-Royce RB.168 Spey Mk 202 turbofan—to be license produced as the WS-9—was chosen as the power plant over the domestic WS-6; the latter's development program failed.
The public source identifies “Xi'an JH-7” as strike fighter aircraft. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Xi'an, JH-7 and strike.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q32020. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2004, 1977 and 1980.
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This entry incorporates text from “Xi'an JH-7” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.