Chinese UAV/UCAV development

Scchwerter_ said:

Checked OP from weibo and appraently the poster claims this is a early development test model from 601, specifically to test the flight control system. He also posted 3 lines with the picture that may be research paper titles or areas of development. They're as such (please excuse my limited English vocabulary):

基于L1自适应推力矢量型V/STOL飞行器增稳控制
stability control of V/STOL aircraft with L1 adaptive thrust vectoring

推力矢量型V/STOL飞行器动态过渡过程的操纵策略优化
Dynamic transition phase (AKA transition between hovering and level flight as I understand it) control strategy optimization of V/STOL aircraft with thrust vectoring

推力矢量型V/STOL飞行器短距降落控制策略设计
Short landing control strategy design of V/STOL aircraft with thrust vectoring

I can't vouch for the credibility of the person who posted these, but he's been a rather active individual when it comes to military topics, especially in areas concerning the navy and naval air forces, and indeed seems to have some information sources. The link is as follows:

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Chavez said:

Around early 2010s china send a group of engineers interviewing yakolev engineers about the possibility of reopening the production for yak141 vtol jet among people being interview including the test pilot ,the pilot provided the techical shortcoming particularly flight handling for yak 36 and yak 141,a chinese engineers believe the problem can sove by incorporating AI .
Few year latera small and blurr image of a vtol uav power by small jet appear.in the web,tyerecare rumor of vtol jet under devlop.some said it could be twin engine vtol.

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tankphobia said:

Getting off topic for a UAV thread now but I'll just chime in with one last opinion. I think in the near term there's no desperate need for China to develop too much VTOL capabilities, they are only really used in a naval setting where the main advantage of a VTOL is its ability to take off on a short runway (amphibious assault ships), freeing up the supercarriers to carry heavy fighters, most of China's potential conflict zone will be within land-based fighter range and they're not fighting half way across the world, so deck space is less of a concern compared to the US navy, it's a nice technology to have, but not strictly necessary for any of China's near term goals.

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Related?
Got this picture from somewhere in this forum, which is allegedly uploaded on Weibo (or some other now-defunct China-based defense forum) sometime in 2015/2016.

No information on the source is available, and no updates has ever appeared ever since.

Remember that some Turkish media disclosed that a "superpower" wanted to exchange Turkish UAV with 5th gen. fighter technology? Maybe that's Russia. I don't think Turkey has any UAV technologies that China needs except maybe Western sensors. Even that I'm not sure China really needs at this point, if advances in the sensor technologies in China's recon satellites are of any indication. On the other hand, I wonder how much Chinese UAV technologies Iran uses.

Russia buys 1,000 drones from Iran and expands the level of strategic cooperation

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China can buy drones to use in the Taiwan straight, thus keeping their own drones secrets safe from prying eyes.

supercat said:

Remember that some Turkish media disclosed that a "superpower" wanted to exchange Turkish UAV with 5th gen. fighter technology? Maybe that's Russia. I don't think Turkey has any UAV technologies that China needs except maybe Western sensors. Even that I'm not sure China really needs at this point, if advances in the sensor technologies in China's recon satellites are of any indication. On the other hand, I wonder how much Chinese UAV technologies Iran uses.

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At this point, most valuable from a Chinese perspective would be Western UAV jet engines to improve its own UAV power plants, but I'm not aware of any advanced engines used in Turkish drones, especially not after the souring of relations post s-400.

tankphobia said:

At this point, most valuable from a Chinese perspective would be Western UAV jet engines to improve its own UAV power plants, but I'm not aware of any advanced engines used in Turkish drones, especially not after the souring of relations post s-400.

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it was Russia, actually demand TB-2 drones. you seriously think China need to evaluate 80's made 100hp engine. LOOOL

TB-2 has Rotax 912 engine.

supercat said:

Remember that some Turkish media disclosed that a "superpower" wanted to exchange Turkish UAV with 5th gen. fighter technology? Maybe that's Russia. I don't think Turkey has any UAV technologies that China needs except maybe Western sensors. Even that I'm not sure China really needs at this point, if advances in the sensor technologies in China's recon satellites are of any indication. On the other hand, I wonder how much Chinese UAV technologies Iran uses.

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That rumor never made any sense to me. Turkey doesn't locally manufacture the Western components they use.

tankphobia said:

At this point, most valuable from a Chinese perspective would be Western UAV jet engines to improve its own UAV power plants, but I'm not aware of any advanced engines used in Turkish drones, especially not after the souring of relations post s-400.

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Turkey's jet-powered UCAV project uses Ivchenko AI-322F, which I assume to be an updated version of AI-222. China already has access to AI-222 and the question now is whether to develop a replacement. If China decides to develop its own AI-222 class turbofan for JL-10/L-15, then the result (w/o afterburner) could also be used for UCAV.

China is certainly capable of designing an AI-222 class engine. The question has always been whether it's worthwhile to spend engineering capacity on such a project. Any new AI-222 class project will likely have to discard earlier work on Minshan, the proposed AI-222 class turbofan from more than a decade ago which went nowhere. Zhuzhou, who was supposed to work on Minshan, is currently working on AES100 and AEP500. There are Internet rumors that AEP-500 was originally based on the Minshan's jet core, but had to go with a new core design because Minshan was fundamentally flawed.

Beside the Turkish project, X-45, Dassault nEUROn and BAE Taranis all use 25-30 kN class turbofans. I think GJ-11 is too big for engines of this class. Do we know if China has an active program for a X-45 weight class UCAV? If there is then a Chinese replacement for AI-222 would be a no-brainer.

sunnymaxi said:

it was Russia, actually demand TB-2 drones. you seriously think China need to evaluate 80's made 100hp engine. LOOOL

TB-2 has Rotax 912 engine.


View attachment 95489

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Yeah, that's what I mean, if Turkish defense firms aren't blacklisted by the west they could potentially have some western jet engines in their newer drones, but since they can only source Russian engines there's really not much for China to learn here. The closest China would've gotten to examining advanced Western UAV designs would probably be the RQ-170 Iran downed back in 2011.

supercat said:

Remember that some Turkish media disclosed that a "superpower" wanted to exchange Turkish UAV with 5th gen. fighter technology? Maybe that's Russia. I don't think Turkey has any UAV technologies that China needs except maybe Western sensors. Even that I'm not sure China really needs at this point, if advances in the sensor technologies in China's recon satellites are of any indication. On the other hand, I wonder how much Chinese UAV technologies Iran uses.

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Iran has big balls

A CH-4 equipped with a domestic heavy oil piston engine has successfully completed its maiden flight. This is a pretty big deal.

by78 said:

A CH-4 equipped with a domestic heavy oil piston engine has successfully completed its maiden flight. This is a pretty big deal.

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Here is a video the screen caps come from: