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Chinese Hypersonic Developments (HGVs/HCMs)
- Thread starter A.Man
- Start date
Is this for a Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) like implementation or just scramjet testing in general?
Both Chinese results are from institutions doing scramjet R&D. We don't have any public information on the related weapon development program.
AssassinsMace
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Thanks for the reply! I noticed it mentioned China had a 600 second and 1000 second duration burn, but was that on a static test stand or actual flight time? I believe the US record is an actual flight and that record is several years out of date! Russia has the 3M22 Tsirkon which is operational, so wouldn't this have the record for longest duration scramjet flight?
I am very confused about the status of a lot of these programs and their so-called records and achievements.
Apologize in advance if something is wrong since I'm just a layman when it comes to physics etc.
At hypersonic speed, it's going at roughly 2km/s. Tsirkon has range of around 1500 km and even assuming it is boosting 100% of the flight time which it isn't, that means it is only active for roughly 700 seconds. 1000 seconds being a new record isn't mutually exclusive with Tsirkon being in service.
PLA equivalent to Tsirkon (CJ-100) have even longer range at up to 3000 km, but the boost phase almost certainly doesn't demand the engine to burn for more than 600 seconds.
CJ-100 aka DF-100 is a strange one though. It is probably scramjet rather than China's other powered hypersonic propulsion types - oblique detonation engines, combined cycles, and the rotating detonation engines that two research institutes have been flight testing (not necessarily in front of military development!).
I say scramjet rather than those other known Chinese hypersonic compliant engines because China has been working on scramjets since the 20th century and have admitted to numerous breakthroughs with this 1000 seconds test being just yet another admission of "record". Keeping in mind that all the abilities and achievements reported are going to be severely understated, downplayed, and delayed! China has shown for the better part of 70 years that it does not announce or reveal things enthusiastically. Controlled strategic leaks are different though but with these revelations in recent years, it is simply China finding more confidence in newer and improved strengths, partly also to play to nationalists too as a major support basis for the CPC.
Scramjets are a hell of a lot easier than other engines China's got working - combined cycle engines (China's flown many times at least one type), sodramjets aka oblique detonation aka schramjets (US only theorised this with Chinese American scientists! but never made any working engines not even for ground testing that the public is aware of), rotating detonation, and who knows what other combustion engine types that aren't revealed. DF-100 is older than the other platforms that have been tested or in service (gliders/waveriders of the MRBM/IRBM ranged variety e.g. DF-ZF/DF-17 and the global ranged vehicle China used to circumnavigate the earth in a powered/glider form). DF-100 has an intake similar to some radial scramjet designs but this could also be a rotating detonation engine since Tsinghua's RDE test engine looks like it has a similar outward appearance to a radial scramjet intake.
I say scramjet rather than those other known Chinese hypersonic compliant engines because China has been working on scramjets since the 20th century and have admitted to numerous breakthroughs with this 1000 seconds test being just yet another admission of "record". Keeping in mind that all the abilities and achievements reported are going to be severely understated, downplayed, and delayed! China has shown for the better part of 70 years that it does not announce or reveal things enthusiastically. Controlled strategic leaks are different though but with these revelations in recent years, it is simply China finding more confidence in newer and improved strengths, partly also to play to nationalists too as a major support basis for the CPC.
Scramjets are a hell of a lot easier than other engines China's got working - combined cycle engines (China's flown many times at least one type), sodramjets aka oblique detonation aka schramjets (US only theorised this with Chinese American scientists! but never made any working engines not even for ground testing that the public is aware of), rotating detonation, and who knows what other combustion engine types that aren't revealed. DF-100 is older than the other platforms that have been tested or in service (gliders/waveriders of the MRBM/IRBM ranged variety e.g. DF-ZF/DF-17 and the global ranged vehicle China used to circumnavigate the earth in a powered/glider form). DF-100 has an intake similar to some radial scramjet designs but this could also be a rotating detonation engine since Tsinghua's RDE test engine looks like it has a similar outward appearance to a radial scramjet intake.
Hypersonic cruise missiles like Zircon and DF-100 (and the US' HAWC project which is yet to be put into service unlike the Chinese and Russian HCMs mentioned out of the *known* projects), are rather lower tier stuff I have to say.
They are just missiles with scramjet engines (or in DF-100's case possibly something other than scramjet). Admittedly it is difficult to get these engines working in real life and certainly for in service weapons, none of these three are really all that impressive. They are lower speed missiles. Even DF-17's HGV the boost glider is miles ahead in sophistication. Something the US has (at leas in public and in admission) not yet put into service an equivalent platform. Their Falcon programs and Prompt Global Strike programs cover the boost gliders.
But surprise surprise China's already done Prompt Global Strike ... and it's also able to release another payload of its own!
Now the above is impressive more so than strapping a working scramjet engine to a missile. Even India can manage that given some decades and the Indians are (showing off rather than hiding strength**) saying they have managed to reach 20 seconds of combustion in ground testing ages ago.
Gliders require serious materials science, computation (of the variety ONLY the US and China have and are currently capable of), hypersonic wind tunnels (ONLY the US and China have in the types and numbers required for iterations and improvements)... ohhh and armies of the best engineers, physicists, and funding in the tens of billions for just exploring pathways.
We haven't seen Russia's glider - Avangard. We've seen one of China's - DF-ZF/DF-17 booster.
As for DF-100, surely a decent "cruise" missile to have in the arsenal but in terms of impressive, China's got leaps and bounds above. After all, the DF-100 was in service and comfortable enough as a relatively strategic cruise missile to reveal by 2019! You can bet your ass the DF-100 has been around far longer for Chinese to reveal it in 2019.
Speaking of DF-100, the recent video showing rocket stage contrail transition to engine stage contrail could be DF-100? It is a rocket boosted, air breathing HCM after all. Or the pics are showing yet another type/ test/ experimental.
**when India talks, it talks about stuff it plans to do and then begins doing years later and finishes decades after projected and they are in a position to trashtalk since no one is actually genuinely threatening to them and their position at the bottom of the ladder. Just contrast how China quietly flew GJ-11 prototype in 2013 and only shown because of civilians seeing it taking photos, with India's showboating of a small scale plastic model (using many foreign components I'm sure) for their Ghatak program UCAV and editing out the vertical stabiliser because they are aiming for a flying wing (but are unable to make even a model of one).
They are just missiles with scramjet engines (or in DF-100's case possibly something other than scramjet). Admittedly it is difficult to get these engines working in real life and certainly for in service weapons, none of these three are really all that impressive. They are lower speed missiles. Even DF-17's HGV the boost glider is miles ahead in sophistication. Something the US has (at leas in public and in admission) not yet put into service an equivalent platform. Their Falcon programs and Prompt Global Strike programs cover the boost gliders.
But surprise surprise China's already done Prompt Global Strike ... and it's also able to release another payload of its own!
Now the above is impressive more so than strapping a working scramjet engine to a missile. Even India can manage that given some decades and the Indians are (showing off rather than hiding strength**) saying they have managed to reach 20 seconds of combustion in ground testing ages ago.
Gliders require serious materials science, computation (of the variety ONLY the US and China have and are currently capable of), hypersonic wind tunnels (ONLY the US and China have in the types and numbers required for iterations and improvements)... ohhh and armies of the best engineers, physicists, and funding in the tens of billions for just exploring pathways.
We haven't seen Russia's glider - Avangard. We've seen one of China's - DF-ZF/DF-17 booster.
As for DF-100, surely a decent "cruise" missile to have in the arsenal but in terms of impressive, China's got leaps and bounds above. After all, the DF-100 was in service and comfortable enough as a relatively strategic cruise missile to reveal by 2019! You can bet your ass the DF-100 has been around far longer for Chinese to reveal it in 2019.
Speaking of DF-100, the recent video showing rocket stage contrail transition to engine stage contrail could be DF-100? It is a rocket boosted, air breathing HCM after all. Or the pics are showing yet another type/ test/ experimental.
**when India talks, it talks about stuff it plans to do and then begins doing years later and finishes decades after projected and they are in a position to trashtalk since no one is actually genuinely threatening to them and their position at the bottom of the ladder. Just contrast how China quietly flew GJ-11 prototype in 2013 and only shown because of civilians seeing it taking photos, with India's showboating of a small scale plastic model (using many foreign components I'm sure) for their Ghatak program UCAV and editing out the vertical stabiliser because they are aiming for a flying wing (but are unable to make even a model of one).
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This article, and the 1000 second test, is from over 2 years ago.