The 66th Brigade serves as an aggressor unit designed to simulate adversarial air combat forces in training.

[2] The 66th Air Brigade has been described as a "full-time ace" unit comprising the most skilled pilots in the PLAAF including a number of Golden Helmet awardees.

[3] Certain tactics reported to be employed by the 66th Brigade including electromagnetic attacks to interfere with PLAAF aircraft and traversing valleys near ground-level before kicking up to target air defense positions in exercises such as Firepower in Shandan, to the alleged shock of PLAAF air defense units.

It wasn't until the 2017 annual Shaheen-6 (Eagle-6) multinational exercise between the Chinese and Pakistani Air Forces that the 66th Brigade would participate in training with foreign units.

[5] The 66th Brigade's patch features several subliminal design themes including the trails of two aircraft, one red and one blue, circling to form two sixes, a nod to the unit's name.