KJ-3000

The radar plane for a stealth war — the KJ-3000 (a community designation; Beijing has acknowledged nothing) is China's next-generation airborne early warning and control aircraft: a heavyweight built on the Y-20B airlifter, flying since December 2024 with an aerial-refueling probe for persistent orbits and a radome analysts still argue about. The Pentagon's December 2025 China report says it "will probably be the world's first model to use digital radar"; Chinese state-media channels claim it tracks F-35s at 360 kilometers. One airframe is confirmed, still in primer — and every number in this file is either inference or propaganda.

Overview

The KJ-3000 closes the biggest structural gap in China's air-battle architecture: a modern heavyweight AEW&C. The PLA's radar fleet today is a pyramid with a missing top — some sixty Y-9-based KJ-500s form the mass tier, the carrier-borne KJ-600 is coming for the navy, but the heavy tier has rested on just four Il-76-based KJ-2000s, capped forever by Russian airframe supply that dried up two decades ago. The KJ-3000 solves that with an indigenous airframe: the WS-20-powered Y-20B — China's own strategic airlifter (see Y-20) — carrying a large dorsal radome, dense antenna farms, a tail-base ram-air inlet read as electronics cooling, and an aerial-refueling probe that signals persistent, tanker-extended orbit doctrine over Indo-Pacific distances. First photographed on 26–27 December 2024 — the same extraordinary week as the J-36 and J-50 reveals — the sole confirmed prototype (serial 7821) progressed through steadily clearer imagery in 2025 into what analysts read as integrated-systems testing. The assessed mission is double: counter-stealth early warning (the state-media framing claims 360+ km detection of F-35-class targets — unverifiable) and, more consequentially, the battle-management node for a networked air force whose sixth-generation fighters and CCA drones will need exactly this kind of quarterback. The Pentagon's hedged assessment — "will probably be the world's first model to use digital radar… capable of anti-jamming, passive detection, and target identification" — is the closest thing to an official specification this aircraft has.

🔒 The full KJ-3000 file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Below the line: development history, design and capabilities, variants, the combat record, advantages and limitations, comparable systems, outlook, the full specifications table, our sourcing, and the analyst assessment — procurement, suppliers and the BattlePolicy verdict. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →