Here is the write up and for the first time confirm that Wingloong can navigate with satellite link over the horizon up to 1000km as well as night flying and automatic landing. It also can fly in collaborative fashion with manned aircraft. But the best thing is they are receiving new UAV that is more potent.
It also highlight the career of Lin Hao the first UAV pilot of PLAAF
It has been a few years since the armed MALE drone
Wing Loong was admitted to active service in the Chinese Air Force, but as is customary, very little detail has been communicated so far .
When exactly did it enter service? How were the first pilots selected and trained? What about the first operational missions of this MALE drone in the army?
China's state-run media - such as the Xinhua news agency, the People's Daily newspaper, and the national CCTV - have made extensive coverage since yesterday on one of China's first Wing Loong pilots. No less than thirty different articles and videos have been published and reveal many unusual details about this drone.
LI Hao (李浩), the air brigade general of the Chinese Air Force, is the man who caused so much ink to flow. Aged 54, LI was a former fighter pilot who flew on 6 different aircraft models and has more than 3,000 hours of flying time.
Its history with the drone Wing Loong started 7 years ago, in late 2010. Approaching its 48-year-old at the time, mandatory retirement age for the Fighter pilots of the Army of the Army, Chinese airline, LI could have converted into commercial airline pilot, but eventually chose to submit his candidacy to become the first Chinese combat drone pilots.
That year, the Chinese Air Force created its first combat drone brigade, and 20 fighter pilots were selected to join this newly founded entity in South East China.
"I was one of the first volunteers to choose this route," says LI, now an instructor of drone pilots, "but only a few of the time were still in service today ..."
The year 2011 was marked by a series of intensive theoretical training which took place at 3 different locations, for the 20 pilot students of Wing Loong. They had to travel between two Chinese air force universities in northern China, and their southern-based operational entity.
"Wing Loong was not yet delivered, there were many questions that had remained theoretical and experimental for us," confesses LI. There were disagreements between the trainers and the students, including the flight control parameters.
After the theoretical trainings come the training on simulator. On May 20, 2012, LI Hao became the first pilot of the Chinese army to take off the drone Wing Loong, followed by the other pilots of the same promotion.
Since then, things have been accelerating. Wing Loong drones participated for the first time in Red Flag 2012, the equivalent of Red Flag maneuvers in the West, where they conducted reconnaissance missions in real time. This is the first time a combat drone has been integrated into the overall Chinese Air Force system.
In 2014, LI and three other pilots performed their first Air-Ground strikes in Xinjiang Province, their new home base. It is here that each one fired two missiles from their drone, and this signals the end of their basic training as a drone pilot.