I don’t think so. There is no gap in the wing for the slab to fold into.
Rumoured Projects & Likelihood Thereof
- Thread starter Maikeru
- Start date
Don’t forget the Mach 4 ejection seat / capsule as well.
That reminds me of one of those strange VCE engines that we saw from Chinese Academy of Sciences a while back. F119doctor actually took a look at it, according to him that is more suitable for an SR-71-esque aircraft so I wonder if these two are related as well
AFAIK, it was Mach 4 from a IWB. If this is related to this supposed aircraft, then it wouldn't really be a recon aircraft and would instead be a modern take on a dedicated interceptor.
I couldn't really think of any advantage a high speed recon aircraft has over surveillance megaconstellations that could achieve near constant update over most of the planet.
I fail to see why would you want to make such an aircraft manned. If there is one use and role perfect for unmanned - it's that.
That said, the whole project is questionable today when you can launch a few dozen radar or optical satellites every few days.
Unless China believes it can't replace destroyed satellites quickly enough. But even then, one would have to have a huge fleet of such orbital planes to make it all make sense. Which again favors unmanned, rather than manned designs.
That said, the whole project is questionable today when you can launch a few dozen radar or optical satellites every few days.
Unless China believes it can't replace destroyed satellites quickly enough. But even then, one would have to have a huge fleet of such orbital planes to make it all make sense. Which again favors unmanned, rather than manned designs.
Time sensitive recon is still not great with satellites. That’s why the WZ-8 exists.
Ran it through a OCR/translation tool that I use to translate manga/manhwa panels, it's literally just going over some of SAC's history. The second image seems to be some kind of job description from SAC lol.
I think we've had indications that they might be interested in a decent sized supersonic/high speed recce aircraft, but the idea of it being manned is odd for the 21st century.
That said this overall "idea" does remind me of this from a few years back
I think most of these are from that paper. And other info about that project.According to 一定会对蛙动手, SAC has some sort of manned supersonic strategic reconnaissance aircraft project. He says that a paper about it exists and is certain that the project itself also exists.
