Jiutian with turboprops
Chinese MALE, HALE (and rotary, small, suicide) UAV/UCAV
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Welcome back, B-25 Mitchell! Perhaps we could attempt another Doolittle? /jk
In the meantime, it does look like the underwing payload pylons/racks on the original turbofan-powered Jetank will have to be removed for the turboprop-powered variant, as the underwing payloads would be interfering with the propellers. This could potentially limit the utility of such aircraft for performing certain missions (say, ASW with sonar buoys/torpedoes, or ECM/ESM with EMW pods carried by underwing pylons), unless the fuselage payload module is large enough carry everything that is required for their respective missions.
However, this twin-engine design does have a bonus - It frees up the space on top of the fuselage. It could be very useful for housing a rectangular dual-faced radar array on the top of the fuselage, which is akin to the MESA on the E-7 Wedgetail. Perhaps such UAVs can even work together with the WZ-9s to form an integrated airborne AEW&C network in support of the manned KJ-500/600/700/3000 units.
Thought that this is a pretty cool use of farming quadcopters — use the rotors to blow snow off the greenhouse film sheeting.
supercat
Colonel
UAVs fight high-rise fire: