Fsjal
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I don't disagree with stealth fighters being the mainstay fighters of the future no doubt, but there's no repercussion in further modernizing current 4.5th gen. fighters using 5th gen. technology, especially since China already has its J-20s in service. It's why I brought up F-15X, and since J-16 more or less uses the same avionics as J-11D then it's not particularly harmful to invest in producing a decent number of J-16s as well as J-10Cs. If we look at the current fighter fleet of the PLAAF today, there's still large numbers of J-7s in service along with smaller number of J-8IIs. It makes sense since replacing hundreds of older fighter jets with newer fighter jets takes a long period of time to do so, with 5th gen. stealth fighters they'll become more affordable by somewhere around the mid-21st century, possibly around 2050s which by then 4.5th gen. will become as obsolete as 3rd gen. is in present day while 6th gen. fighters would be roughly in service by that time frame.5th generation is the future. The ROI will be lower and lower if keep investing on 4th generation.
The good thing about further modernizing 4.5th gen. fighters into the future is that you can piggyback them on the technology of stealth fighters by implementing 5th gen. avionics into current airframes.