Chinese UCAV/CCA/Loyal Wingman (sensor, A2A and A2G) thread

para80

para80

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FH-97A sans the new landing gear has been shown before of course. Unless they changed a few other things important for carrier operations (such as different wing etc), I'd take it with a pile of salt. It looks like a company pitch more than being indicative of what Type 076 or Fujian would embark IMO.
 
by78

by78

General
Two more photos of the FH-97A CATOBAR model.

54136539712_283e22020a_k.jpg
54137853590_f6f1f2d244_k.jpg
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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Blitzo

Blitzo

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A 16hr endurance and 8t MTOW, on a 27m wingspan aircraft is not too bad and I can see some export customers being interested in it.

But for the PLA I imagine a target requirement of something greater, like a 20-30hr endurance with a 20t+ MTOW would be more desired for higher end missions for westpac ISR roles beyond the first island chain
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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Blitzo said:
A 16hr endurance and 8t MTOW, on a 27m wingspan aircraft is not too bad and I can see some export customers being interested in it.

But for the PLA I imagine a target requirement of something greater, like a 20-30hr endurance with a 20t+ MTOW would be more desired for higher end missions for westpac ISR roles beyond the first island chain
Click to expand...

Such VLO ISTAR UAV will have the dimension and performance that are in the same categories as the RQ-180.

Needless to say, the procurement and operational costs won't be cheap - But then, given that we're talking about China, price tags probably isn't much of a major issue when coupled with the scale of Chinese (advanced) manufacturing capabilities.

In the meantime, there's still this post by @洋务先驱张之洞 from September:
siegecrossbow said:
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Click to expand...
ACuriousPLAFan said:
Roughly translated:

Key points:
- 3 years from public disclosure (although many don't seem to mind if not outright missed it) to actual thing/platform completion/roll-out
- The US have similar thing/platform in use for 10+ years
- Chinese counterpart is better/more complete and can be available in larger numbers
Click to expand...

Given that the original plan for the CH-7 is to have first flight in 2019 and commencing production in 2022 (which obviously failed to meet what @洋务先驱张之洞 has described in his post), I suppose that it is more likely to be the Chinese RQ-180 counterpart?
 
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