Chinese UAV & UCAV development

According to the captioning at the top, these are photos taken to commemorate 10,000 hours of mission flight time for CH-4.

 

I really hate the word "某" which reports about PLA always use. What's the secret!

 

I have reservation of using UAV in Yemen conflict as it cause suffering to civilian population.And should not be celebrated. But here it is
The CH-4 drones acquired by Saudi Arabia have recently passed the 10000h flight heading, in nearly 1500 flight cycles. Deployed on the border with Yemen, the drones have taken turns 24 hours a day since the end of 2018. At least one CH-4 had been damaged by anti-aircraft fire.

 

Beautiful pictures.

Hindsight is 10/10, it’s hardly possible to demand Saudi to return the drones now. The lesson is to not sell equipment to countries engaged in challenging world peace.

Arguably, if China didn’t allow Saudi Arabia, they would have acquired them from the US instead, and US drones have a long record of collateral damage. Even worse, Saudi might have acquired fighter jets instead of drones.

IIRC a vanilla CH-4 can only carry guided munitions (laser guided bomb, GPS/Beidou
glide bombs and export HJ-10s), while a fighter jet can carry both unguided free fall napalm, nerve gas and cluster bombs, all of whom inflict much much more collateral.

 

Well collateral damages is not based solely on the type of bombs but rather the judgment on the responsible person to pull that trigger knowing there civilians in the surrounding targets.

 

Cloud Shadow (?) drone being tested for carrier catapult operations, specifically airframe endurance for launching and landing...

 

Continued...



This is a fuel tank model (fuselage section that holds fuel). The tank is composed of three compartments (forward, aft, and bottom). After some simplification, the mathematical model accounts for some 19 parts, including the base plate, frames, and skin.




UAV weight: 3300 kg
Test trolley weight: 3000 kg
Length of powered launch: 90 m
Launch acceleration: 30 m*S^-2
Front landing gear recoil system max movement: 300 mm
Main landing gear recoil system max movement: 300 mm
Pin rod* load limit: 39.5 kN.
Engine thrust: 8.8 kN

*'Pin rod' likely refers to the catapult's attachment point to the front landing gear.

 

Saudi CH-4 drones, according to Weibo poster...

(1457 x 1080)

 

From Alert5 http://alert5.com/2019/07/26/china-...-uss-antietams-transit-through-taiwan-strait/

China activates Soar Dragon UAV to monitor USS Antietam’s transit through Taiwan Strait
The Pentagon dispatch the USS Antietam (CG-54) through the Taiwan Strait on Jul. 24. For the first time, China launched a Soar Dragon unmanned air vehicle (UAV) to monitor the warship.


Baiweiflight [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons


According to the news report, J-11 fighters were also scrambled as the cruiser enters the Taiwan Strait. The pilots issued a radio warning to a MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter from HSM-77 during this period. The helicopter was flying on the west side of the imaginary line dividing the strait. It was transmitted on the VHF guard frequency.

During this 9-hours transit, up to 10 fighter sorties were activated by the Chinese side.

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