Avion d’alerte avancée et de contrôle aéroporté KJ-500

Fiche

Pertinence pour les conflits

Ceci est la fiche unique du catalogue pour ce système. Il est pertinent pour le module ci-dessous ; le Force Atlas de chaque module montre comment il y est employé.

Opérateurs

People's Republic of China: Air force and naval aviation

Rôle sur le champ de bataille

Airborne early warning and air battle management: wide-area detection of aircraft and surface vessels, and control of the aircraft operating with it. In the activity Taiwan reports, its presence is the difference between aircraft flying near the island and aircraft operating as a coordinated package with a shared picture.

Points forts

A fixed, three-faced active electronically scanned array rather than a rotating disc, produced in enough numbers to be routinely available, and operated by both the air force and naval aviation. Its role in extending the picture over water is what allows PLA activity east of Taiwan — the trend line of the past four years — to be conducted coherently at that distance.

Limites

Large, slow, unstealthy and dependent on runways; the same properties that make Taiwan's own airborne early-warning aircraft an early target apply here. Endurance at distance from the mainland depends on the tanker fleet, which is a separate and smaller constraint. Nothing about the aircraft's presence in a daily detection count is evidence about intent.

Pertinence pour les campagnes

Dérivé : une organisation participant à ces campagnes porte une association d’équipement typée avec ce système. Ce n’est pas la même chose qu’un emploi documenté du système dans la campagne elle-même.

• Une pression soutenue sous le seuil En intensification depuis 2020

  via PLA Air Force (Documented, high confidence)

Identification visuelle

A four-turboprop high-wing transport airframe carrying a large fixed circular radome above the fuselage — the radome does not rotate, which distinguishes it from earlier types, and the four propellers distinguish it from the jet-based aircraft in the same role.

Emploi documenté dans les conflits

Routinely identified by type in Taiwan's published daily detections of PLA aircraft, including in composite packages — on 25 May 2026 Taiwan's defence ministry identified a KJ-500 operating alongside fighters and an aerial refueller in coordination with naval vessels, which is the pattern the type is usually seen in. These are Taiwanese detections published by Taiwan, and Vigil reads them as one party's reporting rather than as independent measurement; no routes, orbits or dispositions are published.

Opérateurs par composante et par service

• PLA Air Force Documenté