Photo: Screenshot of Palmer Luckey’s X account

Palmer Luckey, founder of US defense contractor Anduril, posted an image with a caption on social media on Friday, claiming that "not convinced China's J-35 measures up to the real deal." His remarks quickly sparked a debate on international social platform, with some netizens mocking his comment. 

Citing the January 2022 incident in which a US Navy F-35C crashed into the sea while landing on the USS Carl Vinson, a netizen sarcastically said, "Well, for a start, it doesn't have the submersible capabilities of the F-35C." A military affairs expert also told the Global Times on Friday that Luckey’s words and deeds amount to nothing more than performance art, which shows a lack of professional dedication.

Luckey made the aforementioned remarks while attending the 10th Singapore Airshow. He posted a photo on his personal social media showing him measuring the wing of the J-35A with a tape measure during his visit to the booth of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), before making the groundless claim.

“This is more like a piece of performance art, and I think he lacks professional dedication. In China, even a carpenter knows that a vernier caliper is needed for accurate measurements,” Chinese military affairs expert Zhang Xuefeng told the Global Times on Friday. He said that measuring a model of the J-35A with a tape measure yields no insight into a fighter jet’s actual performance.

The Global Times learned that at the 10th Singapore Airshow, China’s new-generation medium-sized stealth multirole fighter jet, the J-35A, took center stage at the booth of AVIC. While the J-35A AVIC showcased on this occasion is a 1:2 scale model, the aircraft still emerged as a star exhibit of this year’s Singapore Airshow, drawing numerous visitors who stopped to view and discuss it. Alongside iconic products including the J-20, Z-20 and Y-20 – the core combat aircraft of China’s "20 series aircraft" – as well as the J-10CE, which secured its first overseas combat result last year, the J-35A formed a systemic display of China’s image in terms of aviation defense.

"Luckey took out a tape measure in likely attempts to measure the J-35A’s length, wingspan and other dimensions, and then to calculate its actual size by scaling up the measurements to derive figures such as the wing’s area. In reality, however, China has already publicly released some of these data with confidence, making his action completely unnecessary," Zhang said. He noted that while Luckey’s behavior may seem ridiculous, it also indicates that foreign observers are in fact paying close attention to China’s advanced fighter jets. "They have already taken China’s advanced fighter jets as an object of research and comparison, even a benchmark for learning."

Wang Yongqing, chief expert of the J-35A's designing institute and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the Global Times in a previous interview that the J-35A is a key component of China’s stealth and anti-stealth combat system. Primarily designed for air superiority operations, it also has secondary capabilities for surface strike missions. The fighter is mainly tasked with seizing and maintaining air supremacy, neutralizing enemy third and fourth-generation fighter jets as well as ground and naval air defense assets, and intercepting aerial targets such as enemy fighter jets, bombers and cruise missiles.

When engaging against older-generation aircraft, the J-35A can operate outside the enemy’s effective detection range to achieve unilateral battlefield situational awareness, securing an overwhelming advantage that upends traditional air combat modes and enables it to detect and engage the enemy first. When confronting peer-generation aircraft, it leverages the high lethality and survivability of individual aircraft, along with advanced formation coordinated combat tactics, to acquire accurate situational information and form a rapid, stable closed loop of the enemy kill chain, thus seizing the initiative in combat, according to Wang.

“To date, Anduril, the company founded by Luckey, has no experience whatsoever in developing manned fighter jets. It has only designed a low-cost unmanned collaborative combat aircraft named the YFQ-44A, and remains a complete novice in the field of fighter jet design. In my view, he is in no position to pass judgment on China’s stealth fighter jets,” Zhang said.

According to public reports, Anduril is a US arms firm founded by Luckey in 2017, whose core business focuses on weapon systems such as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems and anti-UAV systems. The company delivered loitering munition systems to the Taiwan authorities in August 2025. In July 2024, the Chinese Foreign Ministry took countermeasures against US military companies and senior executives, including Anduril. To safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, China’s Ministry of Commerce decided to include Anduril, which has engaged in arms sales to the Taiwan region, in the Unreliable Entity List in January 2025 and adopted corresponding measures.