KJ-600

The eyes for China's real carrier — the KJ-600 is the first fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft to operate from a Chinese aircraft carrier, a twin-turboprop with a rotodome that looks unmistakably like America's E-2 Hawkeye and does the same job: it flies high above the fleet and turns a carrier group from a cluster of ships with horizon-limited radars into a networked force that sees hundreds of kilometers out. Catapulted off the Fujian's electromagnetic launch system, it closes the single biggest capability gap between the PLAN's carriers and the US Navy's — the organic radar picture that makes a carrier a carrier.

Overview

The Xi'an KJ-600 (nicknamed "Nezha") is China's carrier-based airborne early-warning and control aircraft — a twin-turboprop, quad-tailed, folding-wing design with a large dorsal rotodome, built by AVIC's Xi'an division for the PLA Naval Air Force. Its role is transformational for Chinese naval aviation: the PLAN's first two carriers (Liaoning and Shandong) are ski-jump STOBAR ships that could only carry helicopter-based AEW as a stopgap, leaving their air wings dependent on short-ranged, low-altitude radar. The KJ-600 changes that — but only on a catapult carrier, because a heavy, slow AEW turboprop cannot launch off a ski-jump. That is why it and the Type 003 Fujian, China's first electromagnetic-catapult (EMALS) carrier, are inseparable: the Fujian exists to launch aircraft like the KJ-600, and the KJ-600 exists to give the Fujian's air wing the elevated radar picture that defines modern carrier operations. First flown in August 2020, debuted in the September 2025 Victory Day parade, demonstrated in EMALS launch-and-recovery trials aboard the Fujian in September 2025, and aboard the carrier at its November 2025 commissioning, the KJ-600 is fielded — though the Fujian's full air-wing operational capability is still being worked up through 2026. It is the "Chinese E-2 Hawkeye" in form and function, and its arrival marks the moment PLAN carrier aviation reached for genuine blue-water capability.

Development

The KJ-600 surfaced in 2019 as a non-flying mock-up on a concrete carrier-deck replica at China's Wuhan electronics-testing facility, its Hawkeye-like configuration immediately obvious, per Wikipedia and analyst H.I. Sutton. It made its maiden flight on 29 August 2020, with test flights continuing through 2021 (China officially confirmed the program to Janes in February 2021) and, by late 2023, "intensive trials" with at least four and possibly six prototypes. The public and operational milestones then clustered in 2025: a KJ-600 flew in the 3 September 2025 Victory Day parade flypast, and on 22 September 2025 the PLAN released video of a full EMALS catapult launch and arrested recovery aboard the Type 003 Fujian — alongside the J-15T and stealth J-35 — a sequence TWZ called a stunning leap in Chinese carrier capability, per USNI News. A KJ-600 was on deck when the Fujian was commissioned on 5 November 2025 at Sanya, and AVIC named the type "Nezha" around the commissioning. By April 2026, at least six prototypes were believed in use with serial production likely underway, per FlightGlobal, while Chinese state media projected the Fujian reaching full operational capability within 2026 — with analysts noting the KJ-600/J-35 air-wing integration as the real test. Unlike the land-based KJ-3000, whose specs remain almost entirely OSINT, the KJ-600's existence, carrier role and Fujian integration are officially acknowledged; what stays estimated is the radar and sensor performance inside the dome.

🔒 The rest of the KJ-600 file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Stop here and you miss the part that actually matters: the design and its radar, why it needs the Fujian's catapults, how it stacks up against the E-2D Hawkeye and China's other AEW&C, the survivability question, the complete specifications table, and our analysts' assessment notes. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →