Chinese UAV/UCAV development

hmmwv said:

Since PAF is suppose to get UAV technology from the US as part of the drone attack deal, the other potential customers including central Asian countries, Bangladesh, Turkey, or even Nigeria.

Click to expand...

Huitong mentions the pterodactyl deal in 2011 was possibly for UAE.

What the heck, what's UAE gonna use UAVs against? They certainly has the money and don't mind buying newly developed (untested) Chinese weapons.

hmmwv said:

What the heck, what's UAE gonna use UAVs against? They certainly has the money and don't mind buying newly developed (untested) Chinese weapons.

Click to expand...

Send it out to Somalia? The Chinese, unlike us Americans, don't have very restrictive licensing and end user agreements.

Well the region isn't exactly what you would call tranquil. The likes of kuwait and saudi arabia are also heavily militarized.

And UAVs are becoming one of those things an air force should have because all the other big players have them, like stealth planes.

Actually if UAE did buy pterodactyl from CAC, that's a great sign for the competitiveness/quality of the UAV itself. these rich middle eastern states usually buy the best deal in the market for what they want and can fork out a bit extra (just look at how UAE funded F-16E/F development by themselves). But then again I don't think there are many MALE UAVs on the open market fully compatible with strike so that could be why they got the contract. Predators haven't been sold at all, and reapers are only being sold to close US allies.

Well you only want to use UCAVs for covert or high risk operations, I just don't see how UAE having that kind of requirement. Yes they live in a volatile region but its national defense can be achieved via conventional means. I agree that the Pterodactyl is an excellent design, probably only slightly behind the Western offerings, its payload is probably the weakness, they really need to sell some FT3 class SDBs for these kind of UAVs.

Well it's armed with two HJ-10s, which is in line with predator and is as good as anything else or better on sale on the open market.

I think FT-3 might be a bit heavy. FT-5 or the 50/100kg LS-6 variants should be doable.
We know CH-3 can carry a pair of FT-5, and it's a good deal smaller than pterodactyl




To be fair they didn't quite need F-16E/F either; their mirages were serving them fine and they could've been like anyone else and gone for F-16Cs instead. These rich ME countries usually want the best for the military (and can usually afford it), I suppose they had a tender for a MALE uav and CAC won it. The capability to fire weapons may or may not have been a requirement, but if it wasn't it certainly won't have hurt the chinese offering. I don't think heron and eitan can fire weapons, yes?


Anyway, do the flags on the tail look like UAE's, or is it just me

hmmwv said:

Since PAF is suppose to get UAV technology from the US as part of the drone attack deal, the other potential customers including central Asian countries, Bangladesh, Turkey, or even Nigeria.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd say it's not PAF. They already got some CH-3. Also, we would have read more about this in the Pakistani media if they had imported some. I guess we can wait to look at SIPRI for this year to know.

CH-3 UAV

Even though it's a neat technology, I've always been skeptical because all you need is to interrupt the signal. People just gloss over that and it's apparently just as easy to do.