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

ACuriousPLAFan

Colonel
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More footage on the Sky Hawk UCAV during its flight tests.

It is said that the Sky Hawk UCAV, developed by the 3rd Institute of CASIC, successfully flew for the first time in November 2017, and the improved version of the Sky Hawk that is stealthier and with longer endurance will be tested in the field very soon.

Posted by @李明潇 on Facebook.


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tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
But similar to the CS-5000T, what‘s thsi UAV/UCAV anyway? IMO it is too small as an operational type, especially when there is the GJ-11 (allegedly?). So are these just testbed, demonstrators, research projects …??
Why not? Seems similar to role and function to rq-170, as a stealthy recon platform that is in a small form factor. Gj-11 and CS-5000T seem more high-end/strike sized.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Colonel
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Why not? Seems similar to role and function to rq-170, as a stealthy recon platform that is in a small form factor. Gj-11 and CS-5000T seem more high-end/strike sized.
The Sky Hawk doesn't seem to have any weapons bay from the photos, which makes sense for it to be an ISTAR UAV instead of a strike UCAV.

Certainly looks like a counterpart to the RQ-170, IMO.
 
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test1979

Junior Member
Registered Member
I once pasted the Zhuhai interview of the wz700 designer in 2022, which mentioned the use of the Skyhawk UAV

Found an interview with a wj-700 designer,
The wj-700 appears to work with the Skyhawk stealth drone.
Chief Designer Ma Hongzhong

The drone on display this time is called the "Skyhawk" drone. You can see that this type of drone is very unique in its entire shape. Mainly based on a stealth design, it is a stealth drone. The biggest feature of this type of UAV is that we use stealth shape design, high-altitude and high-speed flight, and can approach or penetrate reconnaissance. This greatly improves the survivability of the battlefield and the ability to perform missions. From the perspective of this shape and layout, we use a flying-wing layout. The main feature of the flying-wing layout is that it does not have more radar scattering surfaces, so it is not easy to be detected by radar after reducing the scattering area of the radar. In addition, the The overall maneuvering efficiency of this type of aircraft is relatively high, and it can achieve a cruise flight at an altitude of 15 kilometers; in addition, its flight time is relatively long, and it can perform some scheduled reconnaissance and surveillance tasks for a longer time.

What we saw next was the WJ-700 high-speed surveillance and strike-integrated long-endurance UAV that we launched. This UAV was our first flight in January this year. Compared with the previous "Skyhawk" UAV, it adopts a normal layout . The main feature of this type of aircraft is that its flight altitude is relatively high, it can cruise at an altitude of 15 kilometers; in addition, its flight speed is relatively fast, the speed of cruising is 600 kilometers per hour, and its maximum speed can reach 800 kilometers /hour; there is another biggest feature that it integrates reconnaissance and strike. You can see that there are two pylons on the left and two pylons on the right, for a total of four pylons, which can mount different ground strike precision weapons or sea precision strike weapons. In the next step, we also think about the ability of this type of aircraft to develop autonomous strikes, that is to say, the aircraft will make decisions and strike independently, and its intelligence will be higher.

In the unmanned combat system we built, information support equipment, fire strike equipment and command and control equipment are organically combined to build a complete unmanned combat system. Under this system, we can combine the Skyhawk UAV As a front-end reconnaissance node, it can penetrate and approach reconnaissance. In addition, the integrated reconnaissance and strike UAV, the Falcon UAV as an intermediate node, can realize the integration of reconnaissance and strike.

The WJ-700 "Falcon" UAV and "Skyhawk" UAV constitute the most core unit of inspection and strike, approaching reconnaissance and surveillance unit in the unmanned combat system. They have the characteristics of wide flight space, fast flight speed, long endurance time , large load capacity, high system scalability and strong rapid response ability, which can better meet the needs of future war forms for UAVs.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

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Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
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Additional note.

Have a closer look at that flying wing UAV.
View attachment 127209

Are those a pair of angled vertical stabilizers to the rear of the UAV?

I have never seen such design on the GJ-11 or any flying wing UAV of Chinese design. Could this be an unknown brand new model?


Could it be this is a scale model of the H-20?
IMO it is surely not a GJ-11 but its tail-fins look very much like those rumoured for the H-20 albeit they don’t look foldable.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Colonel
Registered Member
Could it be this is a scale model of the H-20?
IMO it is surely not a GJ-11 but its tail-fins look very much like those rumoured for the H-20 albeit they don’t look foldable.

There don't seem to have any visible cutouts on the UAV's rear section that would allow the angled vertical stabilizer pair to fold down and fit into the fuselage's streamlined shape of the UAV, which is quite different to the foldable tail design seen on some of the H-20 illustrations so far.

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But it is also possible that this UAV is just one of the scaled test models that are used for, among others, verifying the viability of having such tail design (in one of the two/folded-up configurations) on the H-20 and/or other U(C)AVs of similar design.

So truth to be told, I'm not exactly sure.
 
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