Chinese Hypersonic Developments (HGVs/HCMs)

plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
TerraN_EmpirE said:
As a rule one must be careful when using satellite photos to base intelligence on. The US, Russia, The PRC,UK, UK, Germany, Japan, France, and a number of other countries are all well capable of timing and mapping the orbit of spy satellites that pass overhead and the ground crews are often notified to clear the tarmac of any special projects in advance of such.
There are stories from the US constant peg program that the pilots and air crews would often prank Russian photo analyst by laying down objects on the roof of hangers spelling out various Russian curses or placing the nose of a aircraft out one side of a hanger and the tail of another out the back in perfect alignment so it appeared to be over a hundred foot long jet.
But along with the jokes the ground crews were taking steps to ensure that the F117 and USAF Migs were not visible from space.
One must assume the same thing here.
If that mystery object is there its there by design. Either the PLAAF is decoying with a mock up, or is announcing its existence.

Samurai pointed out the bent nose on another fighter aircraft. That could be a jet with its nose cone open being repaired a visual distortion or evidence that its not a real jet but a decoy.
In the First Gulf war and WW2 the US used inflatable decoys and jets made from tents to fool enemy intelligence. Its cheap and readily available tech. Seeing is not always truth.
Click to expand...

Less easy these days with SAR satellites that can produce a very detailed silhouette by examining temperature differentials on the tarmac if a plane was moved recently.

In addition to active decoys, we must also consider that that picture is off of CAC factory deport, and there is no guarantee that everything parked their has to be in its final finished state.

That strange silhouette could potentially just be an unfinished plane or UAV with parts of the wings and tail missing.
 
N

no_name

Colonel
plawolf said:
Less easy these days with SAR satellites that can produce a very detailed silhouette by examining temperature differentials on the tarmac if a plane was moved recently.
Click to expand...

Pour some water over it to obscure the outline.

plawolf said:
That strange silhouette could potentially just be an unfinished plane or UAV with parts of the wings and tail missing.
Click to expand...

Or just something less exciting, like a target drone.
 
Deino

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Oh come on guys ! Don't over-interpret these images !!

We have several other examples of satellite-images, where runways are out of shape (take a look at the early images of the naval training base at Huangdicun).

So here is either simply something dark laying under that J-10, a tarpaulin is hanging not completely fitting over it or it is indeed simply an error in that image.

Anyway ... we are completely OFF-TOPIC !

Deino
 
JayBird

JayBird

Junior Member
Looks like David Axe is reading other Chinese forum or SDF. He picks up this hypersonic flight test story too.

Did China Just Hit Mach 5?
A news report describes a landmark event: the flight of an airplane that can go twice as fast as the Concorde. Then, just as quick, the report vanishes. What just happened?
On a night apparently in early September, at a flight test center somewhere in China, a dark-painted airplane reportedly took off on a momentous mission—to fly faster than five times the speed of sound then return safely to Earth.

The airborne experiment, allegedly involving a manned aircraft with a human pilot aboard, marked a huge leap forward for China as it competes with the United States to develop warplanes and missiles capable of so-called “hypersonic” flight—so fast that they’re almost impossible to shoot down or dodge.

Yes, the September test was a massive technological step. But only if ... it actually happened. For as suddenly and dramatically as the news of the aerial trial broke, it quickly evaporated. Now it’s not clear what, if anything, actually occurred in the sky over that Chinese airfield.

Reporter Qi Shengjun from
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
is, so far, the sole source for the potentially world-changing development, one that could give Beijing an enormous military edge over Washington. In a dispatch dated Sept. 18, Qi breathlessly described the nighttime test—the "roar of the engine," the dark-painted aircraft as it “disappeared in the sky,” the “excitement” and “indescribable emotion” of the test team on the ground.

“A few hours after takeoff, the task is complete,” Qi wrote, adding a literary fluorish as he compared the test plane’s landing to the sheathing of a sword. “When the ‘aircraft brake’ instruction is issued, this mission comes to a successful conclusion. The original anxiety and tension is instantly released—applause, laughter sounding in the control room.”

“The flight test center achieved a breakthrough in the field of hypersonic flight.”
But Qi’s news report appeared only briefly at the state-run Website of China Aviation News. A few days later, the story was gone—either retracted or censored.

The Chinese Communist Party keeps a close eye on the country’s media and routinely suppresses stories it's not comfortable with. An army of censors working for the Public Security Bureau scours news sites and blogs and other social media sites, yanking any material considered politically sensitive. The censors pay close attention to any Web content describing Chinese military capabilities.

Now, at any other time the Party might have been happy to celebrate yet another breakthrough in China’s rapidly-developing high-tech weapons industry. But mid-September marked Chinese president Xi Jinping’s first official visit to the United States.

In talks with U.S. president Barack Obama, Xi struck a conciliatory tone—vowing to crack down on
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, for instance, and also proposing to team up with the U.S. government to shut down the illegal ivory trade that’s driving the slaughter of an estimated 30,000 elephants every year.

Maybe September wasn't the best time to shove a new hypersonic aircraft test in America’s face. Maybe Qi’s report was overeager; hypersonic engineering is a notoriously difficult-to-master discipline.

Whatever the reason, Qi’s dispatch disappeared. But that shouldn't necessarily cast doubt on the underlying premise of his reporting. For years now—decades, even—China and the United States have been making uneven progress toward the very kind of high-tech achievement Qi described.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
#
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top