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

[phrozenflame]

Some indian accounts are claiming this plane crashed soon after take off and the video is a cover up of some sort.

Indian accounts coping in advance.

Its looks like a good counter at first glance against decentralized and shoot and scoot S-400 features.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Seems like CH-7 made some RCS tradeoffs in the design. Thought they could do a better job with the ventral antenna design.

 

[tphuang]

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作为彩虹家族成员之一，彩虹-7无人机到底有啥特点？

彩虹-7外形科幻，和彩虹家族其他成员截然不同。它采用了独特的飞翼布局，翼身高度融合，从翼尖到机身后端分别安装有副翼、襟翼和锯齿形水平尾翼。这种尾翼被形象地称为“海狸尾”，它可以帮助飞机在低空飞行时抵消垂直阵风引起的颠簸，还可以缩短飞机起飞前的滑跑距离。

彩虹-7的发动机进气口位于机身上方，发动机尾喷管则采用半隐藏式设计。飞机外形光滑优美，整体设计简洁明快。再加上机体表面的隐身涂料，所有检修口盖、起落架舱盖和弹舱都进行了隐身处理，这些都让彩虹-7无人机具备了极好的低可探测性能。

彩虹-7无人机翼展27.3米，最大起飞重量8吨，巡航速度0.5马赫，实用升限约为16000米，飞行性能十分强大。

From CCTV Weibo account. Cruising speed is mach0.5, 27.3m long wing and 8t MTOW and operating ceiling of 16000m.

having optimized stealth from rear would give it better survivability when operating in the frontline, I would imagine.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

 

[Clark Gap]

PLA Watchers are very spoiled indeed.

But we also have a “problem” now (to go with our other “problems”):

- This means that the cranked flying wing with tails was not CH-7 (but not necessarily unrelated to the CH-7 program more broadly)

- We still don’t know what that “4th August” ufo is.

- We still don’t know what that “JH-XX-popular-render” looking (but smaller) ufo over Shenyang is.

The aircraft spotted in November was indeed the CH-7. Take a close look at this image—you can still see traces at the positions where the vertical stabilizers were mounted. In other words, they temporarily installed vertical stabilizers in November for its actual maiden flight. The flight in December, however, was its first flight in a pure flying-wing configuration after removing the stabilizers.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

(I forgot the exact timestamp)

Shilao and Ayi said the weird flying wing thing with tails was indeed the CH-7 and it was a "test flight" to guarantee success of the "actual first flight", the one we’re seeing now. It also happened earlier in the year and it's just that the news is released now.

They also said that the aircraft being from CASC has positive implications for China’s MIC, whether in terms of technology diffusion, brand value (the CH family has been somewhat low-end), or broader intra SOE competition and efficiency.

The second point is probably more important than any actual practical implications of the plane.

 

[Blitzo]

(I forgot the exact timestamp)

Shilao and Ayi said the weird flying wing thing with tails was indeed the CH-7 and it was a "test flight" to guarantee success of the "actual first flight", the one we’re seeing now. It also happened earlier in the year and it's just that the news is released now.

They also said that the aircraft being from CASC has positive implications for China’s MIC, whether in terms of technology diffusion, brand value (the CH family has been somewhat low-end), or broader intra SOE competition and efficiency.

The second point is probably more important than any actual practical implications of the plane.

The variety of LO/VLO UAVs, UCAVs, CCAs that are intended for domestic and export customers is indeed somewhat mindful boggling and arguably world leading in terms of actively flying/known to be flying articles.

It's fair to say the PRC UAV industry now is genuinely world leading, or at worst, first among equals with the US (depending on how one wants to measure things)

 

[00CuriousObserver]

Comment by Hole Hole the Chengdu Gay Guy

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There is one particular sentence of interest, of which I have bolded.

CH-7 is indeed a very large flying-wing UAV. But precisely because it’s a big flying wing, in China’s defense-industrial world it can’t even “make it to Malan,” and its first flight ended up happening at a place like Pucheng—on top of that, they arranged conspicuous, high-profile media coverage. And even more telling: while it “debuted” at Pucheng with all that fanfare, the write-up tried as hard as possible to avoid explicitly saying it flew at Pucheng. Even Caihong’s own products that actually had real users in the past didn’t play this kind of PR game. I wouldn’t write the project off completely, but these details say plenty about its status: it looks all sharp and angular, yet the treatment it’s getting is basically “same table as the Jiutian drone.”

Compared with several similar systems that are already out and have clearly identified customers, CH-7 looks like a “straw dog” in technical terms. That’s only in comparison to the domestic cutting edge—globally it’s still decent. Criticizing it isn’t about looking down on anyone; it’s that things far stronger than it are moving faster and more smoothly, which leaves CH-7’s product positioning in a pretty awkward spot.

From this angle, CH-7’s chances of finding someone to take it off their hands may even be worse than Jiutian’s. Jiutian may be designed by the First Aircraft Institute, but from project start to airshow debut to first flight it still doesn’t even have a formal “model number”—just an ancient-style name—so you can say it’s truly nameless and unofficial. But because it’s a contrarian, against-the-trend concept, at least it faces less direct peer competition pressure than CH-7 does. Still, when they did the same kind of high-profile promotion a few days ago, they didn’t go so far as to refuse to say it flew at Pucheng, did they?

Also a picture of the lineup I found, missing Jiutian (I refuse to call it Jetank):

 

[ismellcopium]

How is the CH-9's payload & MTOW supposedly so much smaller than the WL-X despite having the larger wingspan & why would the PLA choose to induct it in that case?

 

[4Tran]

How is the CH-9's payload & MTOW supposedly so much smaller than the WL-X despite having the larger wingspan & why would the PLA choose to induct it in that case?

The tradeoff is probably for greater range and loiter time. For a Western Pacific conflict, these pretty damned important and might well be more valuable than payload.