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

[Pacific]

M3.0 seems rather slow for WZ8, to avoid interception you'd think it would be faster. The USSR made good faith efforts to down SR71s at M3+ and that was 40 years ago.

This is a *very* rough approximation.

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At 30km altitude and Mach 3, the WZ-8 will take ~16.6 min from release to landing for Taiwan and ~14.7min for Korea.

The real "time on station" will be even less, as travel time after release and before landing take up distance, speed, and therefore time, and flight altitude(actually air density, right?) will affect Mach speed.

Just eyeballing it, only 3/5 for Taiwan and 3/6 for Korea of WZ-8 flight time is over land.

That's ~9.9min/16.6min and ~7.3min/14.7min over land for Taiwan and Korea, respectively.

Maybe as a recon drone, it's designed not to fly too fast? Maybe any faster and it zooms past targets too quickly. Remember its flying at 30000m (98425.1969 feet) (Stratosphere).

Edit: Actually, just realized this is the rough altitude for "weather balloons". Haha. "Weather Supersonic Drone"

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Is China known to have equivalent UAVs to the RQ-180 and MQ-20 so far?

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

M3.0 seems rather slow for WZ8, to avoid interception you'd think it would be faster. The USSR made good faith efforts to down SR71s at M3+ and that was 40 years ago.

Maybe the Mach 3+ speed from the leaked documents are merely indicative?

Combined with what @Pacific has mentioned, perhaps WZ-8 isn't meant to operate at Mach 6-7 all the time. That is, WZ-8 will adjust its speed according to flight conditions, mission stages & requirements.

E.g. Mach 3-4 for reconnaisance and maneuvering, while Mach 6-7 for high speed travel to-and-from mission areas and evading enemy interception efforts, something like that?

 

[Deino]

Maybe the Mach 3+ speed from the leaked documents are merely indicative?

Combined with what @Pacific has mentioned, perhaps WZ-8 isn't meant to operate at Mach 6-7 all the time. That is, WZ-8 will adjust its speed according to flight conditions, mission stages & requirements.

E.g. Mach 3-4 for reconnaisance and maneuvering, while Mach 6-7 for high speed travel to-and-from mission areas and evading enemy interception efforts, something like that?

Again - I already asked in the other thread - may I ask, where the top speed of Mach 3 is from?

 

[Nx4eu]

Again - I already asked in the other thread - may I ask, where the top speed of Mach 3 is from?

From the document

 

[Deino]

From the document

But further ... what's the source of this? We'll probably end with "via the Pentagon", but when was the Pentagon correct for the last time on anything regarding the PLA?

 

[Blitzo]

From the document

I'm not sure if you're making a joke, but it's pretty obvious that Deino is asking where their reasoning for the Mach 3 speed arose from, this also indirectly asking whether it is from a place that we have also seen over the years or if it is from a classified source the US intelligence has.

In turn it is also implying whether the Mach 3 top speed is truly representative of reality or not.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

In turn it is also implying whether the Mach 3 top speed is truly representative of reality or not.

Almost certainly not. US intelligence doesn't know what's on the menu at a Chinese McDonald's.

That's a humorous exaggeration, but it has a large grain of truth. China's opacity as an intelligence target - especially after Xi's anti-corruption campaign - is well-attested.

In this particular case, the WZ-8 is powered by a rocket engine and those are capable of speeds well in excess of Mach 3.

 

[Overbom]

WTF... U.S. intelligence seems to suggest WZ-8 flew over South Korea and Taiwan. The routes are "projected" and "not necessarily authoritative," but worth a look if anyone is interested.

Funny the intelligence had a typo on Lu'an AB by spelling it as Liuan.

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I wouldn't place that much importance to this leak. The "leaks" (note the quotes) contained multiple problematic info points that should make any reasonable person doubt their veracity.

And lets not even mention how problematic and weird the US propaganda media has acted with widely and openly reporting the leaks to everyone left and right

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

I wouldn't place that much importance to this leak. The "leaks" (note the quotes) contained multiple problematic info points that should make any reasonable person doubt their veracity.

That's only true if we go with the hypothesis that US intelligence is hypercompetent. That's certainly the mythology the US pushes, but it's far from the truth. If we go with the much likelier hypothesis that US intelligence is incompetent and deeply biased, this is exactly what we'd expect its leaks to look like.