Looks like the satellite captured it as it was being towed in position or getting ready to be put in position. In that photo the uav is on top of the jet blast deflector.
Chinese UAV/UCAV development
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
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Looks like the satellite captured it as it was being towed in position or getting ready to be put in position. In that photo the uav is on top of the jet blast deflector.
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Pretty unbelievable how advanced Chinese carrier programme really is
No hanging around they have a very long term and robust programme
No hanging around they have a very long term and robust programme
SinoSoldier
Colonel
If they are going to test an EMALS-based UAV, why not do it with the 1-2 Sharp Sword prototypes?
Because difficulty + realistic requirements + cost.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
SinoSoldier
Colonel
As opposed to integrating catapult + landing gear to a much newer UAV?
Let's think it through.
Sharp sword is a drone which we definitively know has only one flying airframe, maybe two. It is a much more complex aircraft than a standard hale uav, being not only a flying wing, with likely internal weapon bays, but also the industry's first relatively large scale stealthy flying wing aircraft. There is a lot of testing to be done for a stealthy ucav drone, not only in terms of flight characteristics, but the whole ground control infrastructure will likely have to be developed quite new to support the more advanced capabilities of the aircraft too.
Then let's consider that modifying an aircraft to be catapult compatible isn't particularly a thing -- the aircraft generally needs to reinforced from the ground up so it can withstand the horizontal acceleration forces. It isn't just a matter of modifying the nose gear. So simply "modifying" a sharp sword airframe to allow them to be catapult compatible isn't going to be viable. The alternative, if one really wants to have a sharp sword airframe be viable for catapult launch, means one also needs it to be catapult compatible from the outset of design.
So by now it starts to get kind of obvious what the problem is -- the issue is that the sharp sword airframe and all the systems and infrastructure behind it is very much in the testbed developmental phase, so if you want to have a catapult compatible sharp sword it means adding a significant layer of complexity aboard an already quite complex and new type of aircraft.
Finally, let's consider why the hell they're even bothering to test a uav on the EM catapult to begin with. Is it because they want to verify the utility of the EM catapult? That is doubtful, because they can use weighted sleds or J-15As to do so, whereas using a UAV is a very much niche type of test that would require the aircraft to have been designed for catapult launch from the beginning.
From there, I think it's pretty reasonable to infer that the drone we've seen them testing is likely a UAV that they intend to field from their CATOBAR carriers, or at least to test it heavily potentially for developing future CATOBAR UAVs.
If either of those are their goal, then obviously it makes sense to develop a new UAV or a variant of an existing UAV, using a very conventional airframe configuration and ground control and support infrastructure that they are familiar with to reduce the risk
Whether it is to develop this UAV for operational purposes in the near future, or if it is just to develop a UAV for the purposes of testing general carrierborne UAV purposes, it makes sense that they probably are not yet confident enough with their flying wing UAV development to develop it a UAV of that type for catapult/carrier compatibility purposes.
Considering the US tested many differing kinds of land based flying wing UCAV testbeds before eventually getting to X-47B, it makes a lot of sense why AVIC are not leaping directly from the first airframe or two of sharp sword directly to a carrierborne flying wing drone, because there is too much risk and the navy probably recognizes the requirements for such a drone in the near future is too great. Even the USN have abandoned the vlo strike oriented uclass for the less stealthy, more multirole mq-xx.
but to answer your question -- yes, developing a brand new UAV or a variant of an existing UAV for catapult/carrier compatible testing or operations, using an aerodynamic configuration and associated systems that they are very familiar with, is indeed probably much less risky, less costly and has lower requirements than either modifying an existing sharp sword or developing a new catapult/carrier compatible sharp sword airframe.
Almost definitely not.
Predator C has a MTOW of 8.255 tons, and it has an internal payload capacity of 1.6 tons and external payload capacity of 2.9 tons.
We don't know the MTOW of cloud shadow, but we know its total payload is 400kg.
13.5 tons is larger than the sort of male/hale uavs like reaper, global hawk etc, and is more closer to the weight of the 16.5 ton phantom ray ucav but still quite a bit smaller than the 20 ton x-47b.
13.5 tons is probably greater than the MTOW of the sharp sword that we currently know of as well.
that's the Chinese way of doing things. talk less, do more. while others plot PIVOTS and TPP's the Chinese pretty much keep their mouths shut and ''work'' on things.....
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