Chinese UCAV/CCA/flying wing drones (ISR, A2A, A2G) thread

Temstar

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
Italian guy's new video on the type B UADF, some of his points:

1. He correctly recognizes it as very important and different in nature to other smaller CCAs from around the world
2. He reckons due to it having a rhomboidal wing without canard or wing tip devices that it's optimized for speed and not agility
3. He misidentifies the engine as WS-15 due to serrated petals, not realizing/forgetting that WS-10C has them too
4. He guesses from DSI intake that the aircraft is optimized at around transonic speed
5. He recognizes they can of course act as CCAs, but their larger size and evidentially capacity for electronics inside means they could also operate in a different mode. He guesses either full autonomous fighter or remote control fighter, he's leaning towards full autonomous fighter.

My opinions are I'm not sure why DSI would indicate optimized for transonic speed given J-20 has DSI intake and can reach Mach 2. I take Xiyazhou's argument that these UADFs can be thought of as a JF-17 sized aircraft fitted with J-10's engine, which should mean excellent thrust to weight ratio. Without the drag from a cockpit these things should be pretty fast as far as top speed go.

I wonder what kind of thrust to weight ratio an aircraft of that size would have if fitted with a WS-15, must be some scary number.
 
Schwerter_

Schwerter_

Junior Member
Registered Member
Temstar said:
My opinions are I'm not sure why DSI would indicate optimized for transonic speed given J-20 has DSI intake and can reach Mach 2.
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Not to say I agree with the video's views, but 'optimized for transonic' and 'able to reach a decent Mach number' are not mutually exclusive statements. In fact more often than not the maximum mach number is achieved with the intake operating at non-optimal conditions, especially when you look at fighter jets with variable non-adjustable intake designs.
 
O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
This is the lambda wing UADF with the caret intakes and folding wings - carrier op.

It does look like two camera lens below some sensor module. Whole set up appears quite cheap but gets the job done.

Does suggest they needed to find places where they can cut costs. The hydraulic control arms and wider gaps in the flaps are another example of where these units have to forego getting the best available tech that we see on the manned platforms J-35 and the 6th gen prototypes for gap treatment and even applying flexible skin like J-36.
 
T

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
I am not seeing weapon bay lines on the belly, even when i turn the contrast and brightness up. they do seem to be mostly confined to the side. Seems plausible to me that the single WB door would lift upward, holding one missile. AFTER said missile would be fired, and if another would be needed, the second missile would/could pop out on a system similar to one used on j20 for its side WB. Seems like enough room for each bay to hold two. So the whole plane might fire 2 almost simultaneously with another two a few seconds later. But we'll see.

While belly WB might be simpler, this is a CCA after all, smaller and with fairly short landing gear. Could be that for logistical and handling purposes a side bay was employed. Enough for lighter loads such as AAMs.
 
M

mack8

Junior Member
Totoro said:
I am not seeing weapon bay lines on the belly, even when i turn the contrast and brightness up. they do seem to be mostly confined to the side. Seems plausible to me that the single WB door would lift upward, holding one missile. AFTER said missile would be fired, and if another would be needed, the second missile would/could pop out on a system similar to one used on j20 for its side WB. Seems like enough room for each bay to hold two. So the whole plane might fire 2 almost simultaneously with another two a few seconds later. But we'll see.

While belly WB might be simpler, this is a CCA after all, smaller and with fairly short landing gear. Could be that for logistical and handling purposes a side bay was employed. Enough for lighter loads such as AAMs.
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Well, it is a bit puzzling if so, to me Type A and Type B are roughly the same size, they use the same engine. Type B might seem larger because of the potrusions around the engine at the back, but in terms of airframe volume they seem close in size to me. So yeah makes me wonder why the need for the belly space. Unless of course there is a VTOL variant planned, but that's just me speculating/thinking out loud, very loud. We need more/clearer belly pics.
 
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