Future Chinese hypersonic aircraft

sunnymaxi · 2025-08-25T09:14:01-0400

Tomboy said:
Did the Tengyun project ever produce a flyable prototype?

Tengyun project is under National space agency.

but if you see, there are many institutes and firms actively developing hypersonic platforms in mainland.

1. Feitian-2 hypersonic vehicle.. this will be game changer

2. MD-19/MD-22 series hypersonic platforms. MD series can be scale up to a bigger version.

3. Lingkong hypersonic spaceplane. company has already flown a scaled verification aircraft

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by78 said:
Northwestern Polytechnical University has successfully tested its Feitian-2 RBCC (kerosene/hydrogen rocket + ramket) hypersonic vehicle.

by78 said:
Lingkong has announced that it plans to fly a prototype vertical-takeoff-horizontal-landing (VTHL) hypersonic aircraft by 2031. The aircraft will be 30m in length.

The company has already flown a scaled verification aircraft, which is 7m in length, weighs 1.5 tons, and was powered by two Jindouyun-400S ramjets. It achieved a cruising speed of Mach 4 at 20km altitude, capable of a range of 3000km.

ougoah · 2025-08-25T09:22:10-0400

SlothmanAllen said:
How can you tell the shape of the intake for the Zircon based on the photo you shared? Is that because it has that flat cap? The media Russia always releases indicates a weapon that looks something like the Boeing X-51 demonstrator (which for a long time held the record for the longest scramjet powered hypersonic flight).

Russian rendering of Zircon:

Russian renderings... really? And all those artist impressions mean actual crafts too? Should we include the new AI generated renderings nowadays as well?

Come on. Look at this rendering and the actual image of the missile.

This is what the Ukrainians say they "intercepted". The Ukrainian sketch looks exactly like the Russian image of the Zircon missile launch. Down to where the foldable wings are and where the cylinder tapers into a thinner cylinder near the head of the missile. What part of any of the real stuff looks remotely even close to the rendering?

Sorry but Russia wants to have a underwing intake HCM like China has with the YJ-19. Instead the Zircon is a Lingyun-1 or Boeing Hyfly like radial intake pseudo scramjet.

SlothmanAllen · 2025-08-25T11:26:14-0400

ougoah said:
Russian renderings... really? And all those artist impressions mean actual crafts too? Should we include the new AI generated renderings nowadays as well?

Come on. Look at this rendering and the actual image of the missile.

View attachment 159277

This is what the Ukrainians say they "intercepted". The Ukrainian sketch looks exactly like the Russian image of the Zircon missile launch. Down to where the foldable wings are and where the cylinder tapers into a thinner cylinder near the head of the missile. What part of any of the real stuff looks remotely even close to the rendering?

Sorry but Russia wants to have a underwing intake HCM like China has with the YJ-19. Instead the Zircon is a Lingyun-1 or Boeing Hyfly like radial intake pseudo scramjet.

View attachment 159278

Thanks for this! I honestly didn't know how to determine what the shape of the intake looked like from the picture you posted. I find it really interesting that the actual aircraft is so different from the renderings.

gelgoog · 2025-08-25T11:50:26-0400

Boeing Hyfly had zero successful test flights.

The fact a scramjet is annular does not make it "pseudo" anything. Theoretically the configuration you talk about for the intake is supposed to lead to higher Mach speeds, and a flat bottom might improve glide range. But Zircon already has 1000km+ range and operates at Mach 9. So it does pretty well already.

Deino · 2025-08-25T12:35:43-0400

Guys ... can we stick to the topic, namely CHINESE hyper-sonic airplane developments and leave out all bashing of failed US as well as hyping of former Soviet/Russian attempts. These are not part of the discussion.

Even more so it is about hyper-sonic airplane and of missiles of any sort!

Future Chinese hypersonic aircraft

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