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Chandigarh: The Indian Air Force (IAF) will, no doubt, be closely evaluating China’s J-16 fighters going  up against the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) Dassault Rafales, in the ongoing Eagles of Civilisation 2026 air exercise across Egypt – the first time the two combat aircraft types have operated together. 

For the IAF, the concern is that Chinese fighter pilots are gaining practical exposure to the advanced fighter it relies upon for high-end operations, learning its flight characteristics and how Rafale crews employ it in air-to-air engagements, in progressively more complex scenarios.

The aerial exercise, which began over the weekend and continues into early September, is the second iteration of the China-Egypt air drills, following the inaugural exercise in 2025, when the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fielded J-10C and J-10S fighters alongside the EAF’s Russian-origin MiG-29s.

Those earlier drills covered counter-air operations, suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD), combat search and rescue, mixed formations and aerial refuelling. This year’s exercise, however, represents a clear step up, with the PLAAF fielding its heavier J-16s against the EAF’s Rafales – the same type operated by the IAF. The significance for India is heightened by IAF plans to acquire another 114 Rafales under the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme, giving the Chinese fighters a more sophisticated and operationally relevant opponent to train against.

According to China’s Ministry of National Defence, the PLAAF is using the aerial exercise to train in air-combat tactics, air-superiority operations, combat search and rescue and force employment alongside the EAF’s Rafales. It also aims to hone its capability to operate a combat force in an unfamiliar environment and gain practical familiarity with a sophisticated Western fighter.

Chinese media reports further indicated that the exercise was also progressing from “one-on-one and two-on-two” medium- and close-range fighter engagements, towards more systematic joint operations. Such manoeuvres marked a significant shift from testing individual tactics to practising how PLAAF fighters operated as part of a larger, coordinated force.

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The J-16 is central to that training.

A 4.5-generation, twin-engine, twin-seat heavy multirole fighter, it is one of the PLAAF’s principal combat platforms, operating alongside its lighter J-10s and fifth-generation J-20s. Reverse-engineered from the Russian Sukhoi ‘Flanker’ family, its lineage runs through the Su-27 and Su-30, and it occupies broadly the same operational space as the IAF’s Su-30MKIs. The exercises with the EAF therefore allow PLAAF crews to put their heavyweight fighter through repeated engagements with the Rafale and gain insight into how the French aircraft is employed and performs in combat.

“The takeaway for the PLAAF from these exercises is not that it will somehow acquire the secrets of the IAF’s Rafales, as they differ considerably from those operated by the EAF, but that the French aircraft will fundamentally become less unfamiliar to Chinese pilots,” said a two-star veteran IAF fighter pilot.

The more the PLAAF flies against it, the better it will understand how to fight it, he stated, declining to be named. More importantly, for an air force that could eventually confront IAF Rafales over the Himalayas, even this limited exposure in Egypt........

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