China win again! :)

Seriously, this is the design the Pentagon should still force everyone to standardize on, for CARRIER landing capable trainer, as we as general purpose low cost light fighter and lite attack.

If the Italians adopted a Russian design, and now China is not just using, but selling everywhere, that means its one of those timeless near perfect designs.

Why would a big money outfit like USA use 2nd tier aircraft? Because these days its 98% about being a missile or smart bomb truck.

The Chinese version has afterburners and does mach 1.4. That means its as fast as an F-35.

The proposed USN version of the Redhawk "would not be carrier capable". LOL That means our co-ed and DEI USN pilots will be doing their first ever carrier landings in $100+ full blown F-35, on real front line nuclear super-carriers. What could possibly go wrong?

Seems like a detuned trainer should have stout landing gear, just to handle rookie mistakes, and that would also allow it to operate from less that perfect runways, but WTF do I know? It does strike me that in Afghanistan even, guys were calling for air-support but often "no assets available in area".