Chinese UAV/UCAV development

taxiya said:

so you have a small truck that deliver something that also need another truck to deliver fuel for it. In the mean time you have a big truck idling in your garage that can deliver a lot more in one go.

Why all the trouble of refueling then?

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It come to economic sure they can use Y 8 to deliver good but do they need it to deliver small parcel ? Ship is the preferred transportation to deliver bulk good but it take 4 or 5 days. Now if you need medicine or electronic spare part in 2or 3 hour Do you shipped it by Y-8? That is complete waste of fuel and manpower Anyway these bases will have plenty of kerosene deliver by ship
This UAV is single small engine no expensive pilot. It can make regular delivery instead of waiting until Y8 filled up their order

Hendrik_2000 said:

It come to economic sure they can use Y 8 to deliver good but do they need it to deliver small parcel ? Ship is the preferred transportation to deliver bulk good but it take 4 or 5 days. Now if you need medicine or electronic spare part in 2or 3 hour Do you shipped it by Y-8? That is complete waste of fuel and manpower Anyway these bases will have plenty of kerosene deliver by ship
This UAV is single small engine no expensive pilot. It can make regular delivery instead of waiting until Y8 filled up their order

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I agree with the idea of UAV to resupply islet. BUT my point was that this specific UAV based on Y-5 is NOT meant for that purpose. It can be used in an emergency, no return required, but it is useless in a regular manner.

Here is the data. Y-5 (An-2) has a fuel tank capacity of 1200L (wiki on An-2) or 1240L (Y-5 from 360 baike). Regardless deliverred payload (from 0 to 1500kg), the aircraft always consume almost all 1240L fuel which is 929kg. That fuel has to be stored on a small islet if you want to have a regular delivery service. Who is to deliver that 929kg regularly? To make that regular service possible, you will need to deliver no more than 500kg of real payload, leaving the rest 1000kg for the returning journey, in other words double the size of fuel tank.

I don't think SF as a commercial company is interested to do that business or modify the aircraft for that purpose. If the military want to do that, it will be a very different aircraft after modification or just a newly designed UAV, not this aircraft.

Once again, I am not arguing against the idea of UAV logistic supply, I am arguing against the connection of this SF Y-5 UAV and SCS islets.

Hendrik_2000 said:

It come to economic sure they can use Y 8 to deliver good but do they need it to deliver small parcel ? Ship is the preferred transportation to deliver bulk good but it take 4 or 5 days. Now if you need medicine or electronic spare part in 2or 3 hour Do you shipped it by Y-8? That is complete waste of fuel and manpower Anyway these bases will have plenty of kerosene deliver by ship
This UAV is single small engine no expensive pilot. It can make regular delivery instead of waiting until Y8 filled up their order

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Y-8 can not do the job because the longer run-way requirement if we are talking about islet.
If I want something in 2 or 3 hours, I use SH-5 which does not need runway, wish can deliver a lot more and return without refueling.
We are still talking about islets, not island that could be made out of them, right? How big do you think such islet can be to accommerdate extra fuel tanks and docking facility for ships? If they are that big, they become islands with proper airports, peers and storages, then the requirement of UAV is gone.
There is no need to wait a SH-5 (not Y-8) to fill up their cargo hold (not commercial order), and "waste" of fuel is nothing because these islets are military only, there is no civilian business.

taxiya said:

I agree with the idea of UAV to resupply islet. BUT my point was that this specific UAV based on Y-5 is NOT meant for that purpose. It can be used in an emergency, no return required, but it is useless in a regular manner.

Here is the data. Y-5 (An-2) has a fuel tank capacity of 1200L (wiki on An-2) or 1240L (Y-5 from 360 baike). Regardless deliverred payload (from 0 to 1500kg), the aircraft always consume almost all 1240L fuel which is 929kg. That fuel has to be stored on a small islet if you want to have a regular delivery service. Who is to deliver that 929kg regularly? To make that regular service possible, you will need to deliver no more than 500kg of real payload, leaving the rest 1000kg for the returning journey, in other words double the size of fuel tank.

I don't think SF as a commercial company is interested to do that business or modify the aircraft for that purpose. If the military want to do that, it will be a very different aircraft after modification or just a newly designed UAV, not this aircraft.

Once again, I am not arguing against the idea of UAV logistic supply, I am arguing against the connection of this SF Y-5 UAV and SCS islets.

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This reply does not make sense at all SH5 is huge outdated plane that is museum piece. I am not sure if it still in service now. Last I heard it is only 1 or 2 in service now. If it is, it must be the most inefficient plane first fly in 1976 It is way too big and inefficient for parcel service
You seem to have convoluted logic The fuel is transported by the ship NOT PLANE how many time did I said this before. The post clearly said it 1.5 TON CARGO LOAD NO IF AND BUT. That is the weigh of medium size car plenty of load.
The 3 big islet, Fiery cross, Mischief, Subi has 3 km runway plenty of runway for Y5 derivative.

Yongxing is the prototype of all those bases in SCS And Yongxing has plenty of civilian population make sense sense if the navy want to station personnel long term they have to bring their family with them . I posted picture of school, library even movie theater , shop etc. China provide incentive for civilian to move into those bases like free housing etc. As it legitimize the possession of the islet.

So yeah in due time they will have civilian population to those bases Right now they only have skeleton personnel on those islet in Spratly. When that happened they will need regular postal and delivery service

The army's relatively new tactical recon drone. I forgot the designation. This is the first time I have seen the interior of the control station.

by78 said:

The army's relatively new tactical recon drone. I forgot the designation. This is the first time I have seen the interior of the control station.

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A BZK-008??

Deino said:

A BZK-008??

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Yes, that's it!

WZ-7 and CH-4 spotted at Xigaze airport in Tibet.

An out of Chengdu on a variable wing design applicable to flying-wing UAVs. Basically, a portion of each wing folds up slightly in for supersonic flight. For subsonic flight where more lift is needed, the portion returns to its default position to generate maximum lift.

Not entirely certain if this is the appropriate thread. Perhaps we should have a dedicated thread for China's aerospace research.

Another out of Chengdu. It has to do with a novel aerodynamic design involving movable side strips on a canard-flying-wing design.

"The utility model belongs to the technical field of aircraft aerodynamic layout design, in particular to a canard-type flying wing layout aircraft with movable side bars. The canard flying wing layout aircraft with movable side strips is designed for the characteristics of high lift-to-drag ratio of the flying wing layout but low trim lift coefficient and poor maneuverability. Based on the flying wing layout, the airframe is modified and installed at the front end of the airframe. Long-distance control canards, with a small loss of lift-to-drag ratio to obtain a large trim lift coefficient and good handling performance; an integrated movable side strip is installed on the inner side of the leading edge of the wing, which can be obtained by adjusting the dihedral angle of the side strip The vortex lift in different flight attitudes further improves the lift characteristics and lift-drag characteristics. The aircraft also adopts the stealth design principle, which is suitable for high-altitude long-endurance aircraft and unmanned combat aircraft, which can significantly improve the cruise altitude, cruise time, take-off and landing performance and maneuverability of this type of aircraft."