Chinese Stealth UAV META Thread

The META threads we have been starting and supporting on ATS' Aircraft Projects forum seem to be going well. The intent is to place information in an easily findable location for people to hunt down rather than to crawl through all the different threads that have been historically posted for each news item on each project. This thread is dedicated to the advanced stealthy UAVs that China has been working on.

China has been working on multiple projects of stealthy UAVs. Some are large. Some are small. However, the flow of information is low enough all of the different stealthy UAVs ought to be placed in one thread rather than one per project. The first UAV to kick off the thread is the Tiang Ying: the Sky Hawk.



The picture is of disputed repute, but it gives a good enough picture of what the Tian Ying looks like to give folks a reference point.

The Tian Ying is a flying wing aircraft that has been going through multiple iterations in its development. The very first Tian Ying was a seemingly direct copy of the Mikoyan Skat UAV. The Russians started their own flying wing UAV and then seemingly abandoned the original for the newer cranked kite Hunter-B. They may have exported the Skat to the Chinese thinking they would at least get back what they got into the project. There is also the possibility the Chinese did NOT buy the Skat and there as just parallel evolution. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are stating whether or not the Skat was exported. The Chinese have long since run ahead of the original Skat and produced the newest version of the Tiang Ying.

The newest version is vastly upgraded from the Skat. It was shown off at the Zhuhai airshow and folks were allowed fairly close inspection:

warisboring.com...

One ofthe bits that came out of that was the Tian Ying appears to have received upgrades to the landing gear consistent with being a carrier based aircraft. The Chinese have confirmed the intent is to have the Tian Ying fill the same role as the mostly cancelled US Navy UCLASS UAV, stealthy strike with ISR.

The Tian Ying, in its current form, was recently publicly acknowledged as having had its first flight:

www.globaltimes.cn...

The Chinese have also stated the Tian Ying will operate not unlike the American Loyal Wingman program:

www.scmp.com...

This will allow fighter pilots the capability to communicate with and control the UAV. The US has been working on the capability via the Loyal Wingman and Have Raider projects. The latest version the US can supposedly control a swarm of UAVs easily from a fighter, but tbh, this is mostly software so its not something the US can maintain a huge lead in.

China hating comments should be saved. The laws of physics don't care what flag you fly and so long as you have the knowledge, you can figure out the rest: the US has been training Chinese scientists for decades, so the base knowledge is there. Almost 30 years of neglect of the US military tech is catching up to us, so save the "we're 30 years ahead!" We. Are. Not.

a reply to: anzha

Why do I see threads all over this site about how anti aircraft missles render US stealth tech useless?
If stealth tech is so useless why is every country out there working on stealth planes?

Wonder how long before one gets lost and ends up in Japan.?Loyal Wingman will work with Boolean code but to have it think on its own is still a little while off yet.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: anzha

Why do I see threads all over this site about how anti aircraft missles render US stealth tech useless?
If stealth tech is so useless why is every country out there working on stealth planes?

I think if you can build one, then you can defend against one much better and maybe gain some insight to gain an advantage.

a reply to: Justoneman

Not really.

Stealth doesn't make something invisible. It greatly reduces the range an aircraft can be detected. A 4th gen aircraft like the F-15 or Su-27 or J-10 will be detected far further away than an F-22, J-20 or F-35. A network of air defense radars sufficient to detect and protect against 4th gen aircraft has huge gaps against 5th gen/stealthy aircraft. Even with improved radars like folks taut as the 'stealth killer' they will /still/ detect the nonstealth aircraft farther away than the stealth aircraft.

As for air to air, a 5th gen fighter will detect a 4th gen long before a 4th will detect a 5th. If a nonstealthy fighter gets a radar that can detect a stealhty aircraft, it will still detect the nonstealthy aircraft far, far sooner than a stealthy one.

The new sensors don't make stealth aircraft detectable just the same as nonstealthy: they make the nonstealthy get detected further away than even the stealthy aircraft.

Hopefully, that explains why stealth is required, even if the sensors are vastly improved.

The picture above was CGI, but here's the real flight, at least some of it.

a reply to: anzha

AND presumably your nonstealth survivability from these SUPER-RADAR's depends on electronic-countermeasures and chaff. The amount of chaff and wattage needed to break tracking is directly proportional to RCS in that particular band. So reducing your signature by a factor of nine, means you need nine times the wattage to break track in your generic shape with larger RCS. The ground station can try to brute force and burn through the jamming. With the reduced RCS, they need proportionally more wattage to burn through the same wattage of jamming. Or, heading toward the target (frontal RCS) with the same available wattage for jamming, comparatively my reduced-signature aircraft can reduce track range by two-thirds, meaning only the last third of the flight leaves me vulnerable to track (and I may be able to avoid that altogether with stand off weapons.

Now figure that the F-35/-22 probably reduce RCS by a factor of 100 (or more) compared to legacy platforms in the relevant bands), and which one is more survivable?


Also why getting a combat loaded Su-47 with an RCS around .3m^2 is still a big deal compared to a ~10m^2 RCS for clean Eagles and Flankers. Or ~1m^2 clean Eurocanards, etc.
ETA: now imagine you can supercruise at higher altitude (more altitude=more distance from transmitter, wattage needed for detection threshold increases by inverse square rule -- and if we double the distance, they need 16 times the wattage [signal travels there AND back]) and any time spent inside the threat bubble is shortened even more while standoff range increases because of the added alt and energy to weapon release. Sold on supercruise yet?

Coincidentally, here's a short article from Defence Journal on Sky Hawk... Link DJ

Some screen captures of the flight:

a reply to: anzha

Interesting gear configuration.

Wind Shadow. Something of a dual engine Avenger.

So Chinas about 20 years behind the States in regard to designs..

a reply to: Blackfinger

That design is about 5 years old. So, 15 at worst. In Dark Sword actually functions, then less.

Definitely getting bigger.

I honestly dismiss the final portion of your thread, a rather ridiculous POV you feel the need to add as some sort of disclaimer in EVERY.SINGLE.THREAD.

Respectfully, just make it your signature. After reading enough of those threads, I think you just got an old chip on your shoulder as I have seen nothing of the sort from recent thread.
—————-
ONTOPIC:
The Chinese have made strides in these fields as a result of the power vacuum the US has instilled as a result of MCTR. This isn’t grounded in reality and thus as a result, those who are unable to access US equipment defer to China.
In doing so, China then uses these funds expand and further increase the reliability an quality of their equipment.
What the OP has posted is the direct result of these outdated legislation.

I also have to disagree with the OPs assertion in regards to the Laws of Physics, nothing here has anything to do with that, the US has certainly made those strides and continues to do so.
The case here isn’t the Laws of Physics don’t care, rather, the nature of the Causal universe, that it DOES CARE.
Action, Reaction. Nothing can be further from this truth.
Action: The US, in maintaining its outdated US Export policy of MCTR and subsequent classifications of UAV.
Reaction: China becomes dominate supplier and further enhances their UAV forces.

A question to the OP, if the US realigns their US export policy and subsequent classification of UAVs, can they slice out a market for UAVs give the current conditions?
I don’t disagree that China has caught up and they are to be considered Near Peers, as an Active Duty Soldier in my time, I use to have long talks with S3 NCOs and Officers on potential conflicts with China and they certainly had some experiences to share.

a reply to: Arnie123

Hey, Arnie. Sorry for the delay in replying. I put the spiel about China in the thread only rarely these days. if you note, this thread was in 2019 originally. The reason I did so was I was getting really tired of the "CHINA STOLE IT" crowd. That's all they'd post. over and over. I felt for a time that I needed to lift the middle digit a bit over it.

I think the problem the US has is we have a historic tendency to put strings attached to our equipment sales. Someone wants a Reaper, the buyer has to agree to T's and C's they may not want. China imposes no such restriction. Additionally, the Chinese birds are significantly cheaper. Relaxing our exports will only preempt nations like the Brits and Euros from launching their own industries of UAVs that can compete. That's not a bad thing for US industry, but it will have little to do with competing with China in the market: those nations are highly unlikely to buy Chinese birds already.

That said, we may have a new Chinese aircraft that may have flown.

alert5.com...

The CH-7 may have flown. Alert 5 is interpreting the 500 flights to include the CH-7. The Sino internet forums are saying the work has resumed, but there's no solid indication of a flight of the Ch-7 itself. It's not precluded, but the alert5 interpretation is going a touch far.

For those that don't know, the CH-7 looks a lot like the X-47B. It's a cranked kite. The CH-7 is reported to have a 22m wingspan vs the 19m wingspan of the X-47B. The X-47B is 2m longer than the reported length of the CH-7. The range is supposed to be around 2,000 km and an endurance of 15 hours for this new bird. Top speed is reportedly 920 km/h vs the ~1100 km/h for the X-47B.

"stealth" target drones: