China appears to be transforming Cold War fighters into flying drones. Despite the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) discontinuing the type in 2010, dozens of Shenyang J-16 fighter planes have been observed on Chinese military airfields in satellite images. China may utilize the planes in a confrontation by disguising them as current fighter jets or deploying the drones to carry out their own combat missions. In October, Planet Labs, a satellite data business based in San Francisco, California, produced photographs of the planes. On the tarmac of Liancheng Airbase, at least 50 J-6s may be seen. The J-6 is a clone of the MiG-19, a single-seat, twin-engine fighter that first flew in the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s.
