Can China's Top Guns Fly? -- John Garnaut, Foreign Policy
The Chinese military is aiming high. But can its Air Force break through all the red tape?
The Chinese Air Force plane drifted past a city and seemed to float, like a leaf, before exploding onto a mudflat where the Shandong peninsula juts out into the Yellow Sea.
"It was floating, floating, floating then BANG, suddenly hit the ground," says a witness, according to video footage of the smoking wreckage on March 31 that was anonymously uploaded on the Chinese version of YouTube.
The huge plume of black smoke, still billowing from the wreckage 20 minutes after it exploded, suggests the tanks were full and the accident occurred not long after takeoff, probably from Jinan, the provincial capital.
Perhaps there had been a fuel blockage on one of the external wing tanks, leading to a weight imbalance that contributed to the Soviet-made Su-27 20 entering a flat spin before descending like a kite to earth, according to retired and serving Air Force officers.
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My Comment: My gut tells me that China's 'Top Guns' can fly .... but they are going through their growing pains right now.