Chinese Wing Loong seen near Senkaku Islands

Yesterday two Chinese H-6 aircraft were intercepted in international airspace near the Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by both China and Japan. Today, an unknown Chinese UAV was seen flying in the same area. From the pictures released it appears to be a Wing Loong (Pterodactyl) UAV, similar in design to the Predator.

The Wing Loong has a maximum payload of 440 pounds, and can carry the BA-7 AGM, YZ-212 LGB, YZ-102A antipersonnel bomb, or LS-6 miniature guided bomb. Maximum range is listed as 2500 miles with a 20 hour loiter time, and a ceiling of 16,400 feet.

On Sept. 9, one day after two H-6G maritime strike aircraft had been intercepted by the Japan Air Self Defense Force F-15 scrambled from Naha while flying in international airspace between the Miyako and Okinawa islands, an unknown Chinese UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was intercepted near the contested Senkaku islands.

Based on the image released by the Japan MoD, the UAV seems to be a Wing Loong (Pterodactyl), a drone based on the U.S. MQ-1 Predator.

theaviationist.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


That's a pretty capable little sucker. That range means it could fly from Joplin Missouri to Kingman Arizona at the California border....buzz the truck stops for 20 hours and fly back?

Just how common IS that range on armed UAV's?? Can all of ours do a 2,500 mile range? I'd never looked into it that much.

reply to post by wrabbit2000


More likely it's a 2500 mile range, or twenty hours, but I haven't looked that deeply into it in awhile. The Predator (MQ-1) has a fairly short range (I've heard 454, or 675 both for range, but has a 25000 foot ceiling and 24 hour range. The Reaper (MQ-9) has about a 1200 mile range with 14 hours of loiter time with a full load. The loiter time would be longer with an unarmed flight CNN or lighter load.

wrabbit2000
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

That's a pretty capable little sucker. That range means it could fly from Joplin Missouri to Kingman Arizona at the California border....buzz the truck stops for 20 hours and fly back?

Just how common IS that range on armed UAV's?? Can all of ours do a 2,500 mile range? I'd never looked into it that much.

It should be, remember couple years ago they pretty much hacked in and took all our technology. This the result, don't be surprised they don't make some moves while the world is distracted.

The Bot

dlbott

wrabbit2000
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

That's a pretty capable little sucker. That range means it could fly from Joplin Missouri to Kingman Arizona at the California border....buzz the truck stops for 20 hours and fly back?

Just how common IS that range on armed UAV's?? Can all of ours do a 2,500 mile range? I'd never looked into it that much.

It should be, remember couple years ago they pretty much hacked in and took all our technology. This the result, don't be surprised they don't make some moves while the world is distracted.

The Bot

Also I seem to remember several articles about Prez Clinton allowing some serious technology transfer to the Chinese during his reign. To lazy to spend the time to look some of it up....what was done has been done

dlbott

wrabbit2000
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

That's a pretty capable little sucker. That range means it could fly from Joplin Missouri to Kingman Arizona at the California border....buzz the truck stops for 20 hours and fly back?

Just how common IS that range on armed UAV's?? Can all of ours do a 2,500 mile range? I'd never looked into it that much.

It should be, remember couple years ago they pretty much hacked in and took all our technology. This the result, don't be surprised they don't make some moves while the world is distracted.

The Bot

One of the errors people often make is to think that all China does is copy.

Consider this. You steal the plans for an aircraft. Now you could just produce them. China does not. What they do is to put their design team on the job. Now they have full benefit of the US design team PLUS they have the input of their own very capable design team as well.

If they are in a hurry they may just copy, but the next model or variant will have the benefits of twin design teams. Improvements will be made. The 'copies' are more than likely to be better, sometimes much better than the original.

Additionally, Chinese manufacturers of Military hardware are not orientated towards profit margins and therefore can make it better for a lot less money.

P