Training that still emphasizes blind obedience to the commands of their ground controllers means today's young fighter pilots of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aren't going to last very long in combat against the maverick fighter pilots of the United States Armed Forces trained to value initiative, aggressiveness and an intense desire to destroy the enemy.

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Think of Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the 1986 Hollywood hit movie "Top Gun" to picture today's U.S. fighter pilot. Think of an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) when you picture today's PLAAF fighter pilots.

The UCAV analogy is apt because this machine will only do what its operators (normally two pilots in a ground control station) tell it to do. A UCAV can't think. It can only react. Much like a PLAAF fighter pilot that has to ask permission from his ground control before he does anything.

News the PLAAF wants its fighter jocks to fight more like traditional fighter jocks suggests the PLAAF can overcome its six decades of addiction to ground control, and almost overnight transform its army of zombie fighter pilots into actual thinking machines. Good luck with that.

A report by American global policy think tank RAND Corporation claims a new PLAAF fighter pilot training regime will focus on "actual combat conditions ... manifested in training scenarios meant to mimic or simulate real-world battle conditions."

This new training doctrine will include an emphasis on "free air combat" and "unscripted scenarios," phrases meaning initiative and quick thinking as alien to the PLAAF as mom's apple pie.

The qualities, which continue to receive emphasis at the U.S. Air Force's and U. S.Navy's fighter weapons schools, are a reason American fighter pilots are dominant in air-to-air combats, which the public still equates with the mano-a-mano dogfights of the Second World War where getting on the other guy's "six o'clock" was the overriding aim.

The RAND's report saw PLAAF "shortfalls in pilot performance, including insufficient flight-lead skills and autonomy, lax discipline during daily training, poor tactics, and a lack of coordination with other PLAAF branches."

PLAAF's fighter jocks have their work cut out when they finally face their U.S. foes over the South China Sea beyond the reach of their ground control.

TagsPeople's Liberation Army Air Force, fighter pilots, Tom Cruise, Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Top Gun, unmanned combat aerial vehicle, UCAV