So, I am creating this thread dedicated to future Chinese hypersonic take off -and- landing bomber/ISR. The main idea is that the Americans and russians have had such projects, sr-72 and Ayaks respectively, we should reasonably expect that the Chinese have been working on something similar. Of course, I don't know what and how they are doing the development, but I expect that they have had similar projects. After displaying what looks like air-breathing high subsonic/hypersonic missiles, CJ-19, during the parade rehearsals, I have started to suspect that the Chinese have mastered air breathing hypersonic/high subsonic engine designs, so it's very likely that the PLA may use the same technology for hypersonic aircraft. If that type of engine works in missiles, why won't it work in aircrafts? Of course with some modifications. One may even speculate that the Chinese should be ahead in the development of hypersonic aircrafts because they have already displayed an air-breathing hypersonic/high subsonic missiles, while neither the USA or Russia have shown publicly anything close to that. I am very sceptical of Russian zircon. Overall, these are my thoughts as to why I decided to create this thread. If the moderators or staff members believe this thread is inappropriate, feel free to delete it.
Future Chinese hypersonic aircraft
- Thread starter magmunta
- Start date
Sorry, I mean YJ-19 instead of cj-19. My bad
That is funny. You are skeptical that Russia, the country with the longest uninterrupted development in ramjet missiles can make an air breathing Zircon missile. Lol.
See this?
That is Burya. A Stalin era intercontinental range ramjet cruise missile. Successfully developed but canceled in favor of the R-7 ICBM.
The problem with making a hypersonic aircraft is you make things even harder. Suddenly you need way higher engine and airframe lifetime. Plus you need way more engine power.
You will likely see hypersonic drones first.
See this?
That is Burya. A Stalin era intercontinental range ramjet cruise missile. Successfully developed but canceled in favor of the R-7 ICBM.
The problem with making a hypersonic aircraft is you make things even harder. Suddenly you need way higher engine and airframe lifetime. Plus you need way more engine power.
You will likely see hypersonic drones first.
1. Uninterrupted history of developing anything doesn't necessarily mean it can develop a certain piece of future tech.
2. There is no evidence that Russia has long and uninterrupted history of developing hypersonic capable engines above ramjets. USSR =/= Russian Federation. Just because USSR and Russia does have a great history working with ramjet engines doesn't mean they have mastered scramjet engines. They have supposedly got a scramjet powered HCM in Zircon. It could be much better than what China and US have or much worse.
The US hasn't even managed to put a scramjet into a fielded product. Russia has and it appears China has for some time too. Long enough for China to be currently the only known nation on earth to possess submarine launchable scramjet powered HCMs. But different nations have different standards. Russia may have put a 20/100 scramjet into a missile and called it a day. The US might be dissatisfied with a 70/100 scramjet and working to perfect it further. Who knows.
2. There is no evidence that Russia has long and uninterrupted history of developing hypersonic capable engines above ramjets. USSR =/= Russian Federation. Just because USSR and Russia does have a great history working with ramjet engines doesn't mean they have mastered scramjet engines. They have supposedly got a scramjet powered HCM in Zircon. It could be much better than what China and US have or much worse.
The US hasn't even managed to put a scramjet into a fielded product. Russia has and it appears China has for some time too. Long enough for China to be currently the only known nation on earth to possess submarine launchable scramjet powered HCMs. But different nations have different standards. Russia may have put a 20/100 scramjet into a missile and called it a day. The US might be dissatisfied with a 70/100 scramjet and working to perfect it further. Who knows.
Hypersonic aircraft (reusable) will require much more powerful engines than strapping a working scramjet to a hypersonic capable airframe. If you use the aircraft for ISR or payload delivery, scramjets will probably not be as suitable as combined cycle engines. It'll also be difficult to rocket boost the craft to hypersonic speeds and get it to land through a glide. Scramjet has a narrow operating speed window making it require the rocket boost to mach 4+. But there are other engine types which Tengyun project has explored. Pretty sure they said it was test flown with combined cycle engine/s rather than just scramjet.
Did the Tengyun project ever produce a flyable prototype?
Except Russia did fly their first scramjet in the 1990s. The Kholod. Before the US ever did.
The US has ZERO operational hypersonic airbreathing weapons. They don't even have operational hypersonic glide vehicles yet. First is supposed to be LRHW.
The US has zilch.
From a torpedo tube you mean. Because Russia has fired the Zircon submerged from the Yasen SSN. From the VLS tubes.
Yes there was an official announcement of Tengyun project producing a craft that flew in 2021. The official statements are rather limited as expected with these sort of things but it tested some new propulsion said to be a combined cycle - rocket and ramjet if I recall. It mentioned using new breakthrough tech (note that this was about half a decade ago now) and reputable sources claim that the test flight exhibited numerous hypersonic and propulsion tech that was leading the world significantly. This is just off memory but this very forum has a decent record of the news shared in 2021 and iirc they did another combined cycle test in 2022. Maybe someone who is more familiar with this can provide.
Yes Russia flew scramjets well before Zircon. But US also flew scramjets with HTV program even if most of the announced projects were failures they did have at least one successful scramjet flight before they cancelled their HTV and Blackswift program. Now replaced by FALCON (?) or whatever they're calling their HCM/reusable hypersonic air breathing craft.
China also flew scramjets in tests before YJ-19. Flying scramjets and mastering scramjets can be two very different things.
Even India might have flown scramjets in tests. They certainly have bench tested them at least.
Just because Russia does have one operational hypersonic air breathing weapon doesn't mean they're certainly ahead of the US or China. It may be the case but I have doubts.
The Zircon appears to be quite a low tier HCM. It looks like the Hyfly and Lingyun-1. Can we please stop pretending the Zircon is something like YJ-19 with a underwing intake?
Zircon:
Boeing Hyfly and Lingyung - 1:
The Zircon's intake looks EXACTLY like Hyfly and Lingyun-1. Look at the Zircon launch picture. It doesn't have a HTV or X-43A or YJ-19 style intake.
Lingyun-1 and Hyfly both use engines that neither China or US call pure scramjet. Both nations call this some pseudo scramjet engine.
If China or US wanted to perfect this path of HCM, I suspect they could have. I suspect DF-100 (not DF-1000) might be using a similar type of engine, a halfway solution between ramjet and scramjet. Online literature for these weapons are scarce but we also know the HTV, X-43A and DF-19 have scramjet engines. They use a very different intake design. The pseudo scramjet uses a ramjet or rotating detonation radial style intake but with curiously identical shaped vane openings and geometry.
This perfectly aligns with what we know of Zircon from the available official photos of the missile (it has a radial intake) and from Ukraine's photos of missiles they claim is Zircon (either intercepted or whatever).
Hence I want to say that at least China is ahead of Russia in hypersonic propulsion tech since China has fielded even torpedo tube launchable scramjet powered HCMs. US I would consider to be ahead as well given the history of their programs, determination to field hypersonic cruise missiles and availability of resources compared to Russia. You can point to programs from the 20th century but you'd be remiss to think that China didn't also have hypersonic engine programs in the 20th century. They probably didn't show them as much as Russia/USSR. US didn't start playing with this any later than the USSR and had more resources than the USSR every step along the way. You can point to those programs but they may be Buran like.
Zircon ~ Lingyun-1 ~ Hyfly < YJ-19
If the above isn't true, why didn't China even field this style of "HCM" when they were playing with the Lingyun-1? Assuming knowledge and learning from that program didn't go into DF-100.
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: