From Henri K blog. In service already?
The entry into service of the Chinese hypersonic drone?
BY
60 is the number of messages to aircrafts (NOTAM) that would correspond to high supersonic or hypersonic tests possible in China that we recorded between September 2015 and early July this year. While not all of them are necessarily linked to the ultra-high-speed reconnaissance drone project developed by the 611 Chengdu Institute, the latest satellite photos dating back two months
still seem to suggest that the machine would have already entered service at within the Chinese armed forces.
On the image taken probably in Malan (马兰) / Hoxud (和 硕) in Xinjiang province on June 7, we can see several different models of drone lining up in front of the hangars.
Most of these drones remain more or less recognizable, for example we identify the MALE Wing Loong II (or CH-5) drone with its long-range wing that has sold a hundred copies to customers in the Middle East , the EA-03 used by the Navy and the Chinese Air Force for strategic reconnaissance that is easily distinguished by its rhomboid wings, the supposed CH-3 with a pair of ducks in the front, or the ASN-301 anti-radiation drone derived from the Israeli Harpy.
But one of them, a black triangular drone, is totally unrecognizable and has apparently never appeared publicly until now. A quick comparison with the other drones alongside shows that the craft is about 12.1 meters long for a wingspan of 5.6 meters.
The physical aspect of this mysterious drone thus suggests that it is rather designed for a high flight speed. The image analysis also suggests that it is powered, possibly with a RBCC or TBCC type motor.
These first elements converge towards the project of a hypersonic drone revealed three years ago by an article in the newspaper
China Aviation News , a daily newspaper of the Chinese manufacturer AVIC. Several elements of this hypersonic project have already been studied in our file "
And recent clues also suggest that
.
Patent extract of a multi-layer thermal insulation for "high-speed cruising vehicle in near space"
Extract from the patent of a GSE dedicated to a "machine of large surface area"
Of course we have to wait for other institutional elements to confirm the link between this drone appeared in early June in the satellite images and the so-called project of the 611 Chengdu Institute, but it is virtually certain that no matter the true nature of the
the fact that it is located in the Air Base Unit 95835, which is , means that the project has at least has reached a certain technical maturity and has either already entered active service or is in the process of becoming active.
To be continued.
Henri K.