I thought this, was the WZ-2000?
This was called the xianglong
These are the WZ-2000. The original Xiang Long was never built.
And this again is called the xianglong? (huitong's calling it the soaring eagle, but I think the name on the plane isn't)
As tphuang said, very confusing.
Soar Dragon, or Soar Eagle, or Xiang Long. This is the actual Xiang Long.
People have been mixing up the photos of the WZ-2000 prototype with the name "Xiang Long". Me included.
Is it? all the models we've seen shows it only as a surveillance UAV, not a ucav. I can't imagine its joined wing is strong enough to support a couple of AShMs either.
C-701 is a very light missile, almost half the warhead weight as the AGM-65 Maverick. More of an air to surface missile than anything else.
Take stuff from strategy center with a small pinch of salt -- besides MQ-9 has already demonstrated CAS capability. I believe Rick Fisher was just trying to fear monger a little with that to people who don't know that any uav can do CAS if they have a few missiles onboard.
The MQ-9 is not technically a CAS UCAV used to support ground forces, but more like a pinpoint strike UCAV. The poster shown in the report was not made by Mr. Fisher. It was taken from a Chinese exhibition.
The BA-7 which the delta winged UCAV carries also have been already been revealed, developed, and tested, suggesting that the UCAV may have some meat after all.
Different posters of the same UCAV have been posted on many Chinese websites. I believe the name they are giving it is the "Thunderbolt UCAV".
I believe that model was at a stand for an optics company who were just showcasing the possible inclusion of their products on a uav, the uav itself possibly isn't under development.
If that is true, then it achieves the same effect. By effectively mounting a TY-90 and anti tank missile rack onto a UAV like the WZ-2000 or Xiang Long, it would turn the former into UCAVs.
This is a thread about all uavs and ucavs, why not include it?
I'll talk about it though -- a forward swept wing, ucav in the class of X-45/X-47B that will fly sometime around 2012. That's all we know.
The Combat Eagle, if it retains its forward swept wing configuration, would have substantially superior maneuverability (subsonic and supersonic) than the X-47, Taranis, nEUROn, and Skat.
It might also interest you to know that the Shenyang Darksword has been abandoned.
