China's CH-5 UCAV has made its maiden flight

The mass-production model of China's unmanned aerial vehicle CH-5, or "Caihong (Rainbow) 5", prepares to land in an airport after its trial flight in north China's Hebei Province, July 14, 2017. Introduced at an international airshow in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai last year, the CH-5 can conduct reconnaissance, surveillance, patrol, target positioning and strike missions, according to its developer.

china-defense.blogspot.com...

pictures are in the link.

a reply to: anzha

As per all Chinese stuff, looks super original! Glad they put that unique flair to it.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: anzha

As per all Chinese stuff, looks super original! Glad they put that unique flair to it.

Why re-invent the wheel when you can legally get the blueprints from your adversary.

Saves a lot of time and research dollars.

P

It doesn't have an EO pod, what kind of surveillance is it going to do?

a reply to: Forensick

The EO pod isn't mounted. They have different configurations. One puts an EO pod under the nose, another configuration puts the EO pod behind the nose gear, with another sensor behind it further back on the fuselage.

originally posted by: pheonix358

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: anzha

As per all Chinese stuff, looks super original! Glad they put that unique flair to it.

Why re-invent the wheel when you can legally get the blueprints from your adversary.

Saves a lot of time and research dollars.

P

I really hate that. I REALLY REALLY DO...

Standing on the shoulders of giants, smdh

originally posted by: Arnie123

originally posted by: pheonix358

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: anzha

As per all Chinese stuff, looks super original! Glad they put that unique flair to it.

Why re-invent the wheel when you can legally get the blueprints from your adversary.

Saves a lot of time and research dollars.

P

I really hate that. I REALLY REALLY DO...

Standing on the shoulders of giants, smdh

Just like the US winning the race to the moon on the shoulders of Nazi scientists.

Same difference. Everyone does it where they can. You, them, the others, they all play the same game.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

Are you an American?

originally posted by: Arnie123
a reply to: pheonix358

Are you an American?

What? You can't just look at my stats for the answer?

Location Aus.

P

Yeah...looks like a top notch uber elite crew of "drone specialists" working on this rig. I bet the guy in the plaid shirt pilots it from his iPhone. Which is a knock off just like their "drone". Look at how light duty the landing gear is on this thing. And how small that prop is. The blades are tiny. This drone has no weight to it therefore it isn't carrying any equipment of strategic value. Looks more like a model than an tactical drone.

If you look closely you can see a gimble where they mount a GoPro as their surveillance camera.

a reply to: Outlier13

Or a group of foreign contractors and college grads working for the PLA.

originally posted by: Outlier13
Yeah...looks like a top notch uber elite crew of "drone specialists" working on this rig. I bet the guy in the plaid shirt pilots it from his iPhone. Which is a knock off just like their "drone". Look at how light duty the landing gear is on this thing. And how small that prop is. The blades are tiny. This drone has no weight to it therefore it isn't carrying any equipment of strategic value. Looks more like a model than an tactical drone.

If you look closely you can see a gimble where they mount a GoPro as their surveillance camera.

I dont think the size of the prop matters too much, you use a large one eg. MV-22 with a bigger pitch that needs to give you some grunt as it is basically doing all the lifting, but it doesn't equate to top end power as it also causes drag.

Similarly a smaller one which spins faster has little drag and pushes the drone and lets the wings do the work.

a reply to: Forensick

The prop size definitely matters when it comes to pushing weight which is my point. This Chinese drone seems ill equipped to carry any equipment necessary to render it a tactical drone otherwise it would have a much larger propeller and more substantial landing gear.

Look at our MQ-9 Reaper for comparison

originally posted by: Outlier13
a reply to: Forensick

The prop size definitely matters when it comes to pushing weight which is my point. This Chinese drone seems ill equipped to carry any equipment necessary to render it a tactical drone otherwise it would have a much larger propeller and more substantial landing gear.

Look at our MQ-9 Reaper for comparison

That picture certainly seems to raise questions about the Chinese prop selection!

I suspect that you match the prop to the engine, that you need more torque to move a bigger prop and that the Chinese can copy a picture or design but not a super efficient turbo prop?

They both have skinny legs though!

a reply to: anzha

super ground breaking stuff here.

all kidding aside its the sensors that matter, there is only so many ways to make a drone for a certain job

Not an aerospace or RF engineer, but I'm pretty sure a propeller increases RCS massively, so stealthy designs will attempt to minimize the size as much as practicable.

The Predator and Reaper also have small propellers relative to the size of the aircraft.

These are also aircraft which are designed to fly an extremely long time, thus they must be as efficient as possible. I'm also betting certain safety requirements can be skipped because it's unmanned. And I wonder how noise minimization effects propeller size?

Operational requirements will drive the design of the aircraft.

Also not all defense contractors are always formal. If I posted a picture of some american contractors working on american equipment, then claim it's Chinese (or Russian), I could get someone to criticize it. Oh wait.... I did that in 2008.

Also I'll have been here for 10 years in just under 2 weeks.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

What do you expect from a Chinese knock off.

I wonder if they didn't buy it on canal street.

a reply to: Forensick

If you're not carrying a large payload you can squeeze a smaller prop in. It's not as effective or efficient, but it works. You can see a couple of ours that have smaller payloads that have smaller props.

Some of these even fly like gliders for some distances.

a reply to: Outlier13

I don't think the prop on that aircraft is its final design prop. It just doesn't seem to be the right size nor does it seem to fill out it's hub properly. Maybe just a prop that is good enough to get it into the air to start it's IOC.