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China Unveils Wing Loong- 10 Attack Drone
  • Our Bureau
  • 03:21 PM, November 2, 2020
  • 11486

China Unveils Wing Loong- 10 Attack Drone

China has displayed its new Wing Loong-10 attack drone at Nanchang Airshow 2020 that kicked off on Saturday.
The aircraft is a ground-attack version of the Wing Loong. It uses 1t thrust ZF850 engine that costs ¥6 million, according to reports.
Developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, the Wing Loong or Pterodactyl-I is a Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE) drone used for surveillance and aerial reconnaissance. It is capable of being fitted with air-to-surface weapons for use in an UCAV role. It can carry 440 pounds combined of both weapons and reconnaissance gear, has a range of 2,500 miles and can remain aloft for 20 hours.
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China Unveils Wing Loong- 10 Attack Drone

The UAV has been used by Saudi coalition forces in Yemen and by Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya.
The drone is capable of being fitted with a variety of sensors, including a forward looking infrared turret and synthetic aperture radar. Intended for use as a surveillance and aerial reconnaissance platform, the drone is capable of being fitted with air-to-surface weapons for use in an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) role.
Based on official marketing material released by CADI, the Pterodactyl can carry the BA-7 air-to-ground missile, YZ-212 laser-guided bomb, YZ-102A anti-personnel bomb and 50kg LS-6 miniature guided bomb.
 
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Pterodectyl? First I thought they are talking about medicine. Anyway good addition. China needs more if they want to thwart american aggression in scs.
 
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This Wing Loong 10 Cloud Shadow was derived from the Wind Shadow, which is used by PLA only.

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On Cloud Shadow, the twin turbo-fan engines have been replaced with a single turbo-jet engine. The stealth nozzles have been replaced with a normal round nozzle. There is also no sight that PLA used Wind shadow for ground attacking.

In conclusion, Cloud Shadow lacks major stealth features comparing to Wind Shadow.
 
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Feng Ying (Wind Shadow) / Wing-Loong 10 / Pterosaur-10 - Lethal UAS
UAV EvolutionChengdu Institute of Aviation Industry/Chengfei has developed and produced the Pterosaur series of inspection and combat drones that have become Xiangmo. In this family, Pterosaur 1 and Pterosaur 2 are the most familiar, and the latest is the Pterosaur 10. One picture shows that the engine nozzle at the tail of the pterosaur 10 is very concealed. It can be vaguely seen that there are actually 2 nozzles. What is particularly special is that this nozzle is not circular, but a binary with infrared invisible. There is also a deceleration parachute above the nozzle and engine nozzle. All evidence shows that this Pterosaur 10 is actually the Chengfei "Fengying" UAV that was exposed in the previous two years.

Military observers noted that the Wing Loong-10 is another nomenclature for the Cloud Shadow drone, which was also produced by the Chengdu aircraft company. They also found that the CCTV report used video clips of the Cloud Shadow when introducing the Wing Loong-10.








Excrept from GlobalSecurity.org
 
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This Wing Loong 10 Cloud Shadow was derived from the Wind Shadow, which is used by PLA only.
..There is also no sight that PLA used Wind shadow for ground attacking.


Do we have any proof that the PLA is using the Wind Shadow?
 
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Deino helped identify major UAVs which have been or could be used by PLA on Twitter.

For PLA, Wind Shadow is a single purpose (reconnaissance) and stealth UAV while stealth ground attacking role is taken by GJ-11.

That sort of explain why CAC developed Cloud Shadow as they wanted to re-use and further capitalise their work on the Wind Shadow. I guess CAC is not allowed to sell stealth UAVs to international buyers. Also international buyers normally want ground attacking functions. Thus the Wind Shadow was morphed into the Cloud Shadow we have seen so far.

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BTW Wind Shadow participates EMALS testing
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WL-10 seems emphasize more on aerodynamic over engine capability

Great looking UAV-UCAV. A very decent leap from the original Wing Loong which in of itself had tremendous success worldwide. If this gets export clearance and is priced competitively, it should sell very well.
 
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Great looking UAV-UCAV. A very decent leap from the original Wing Loong which in of itself had tremendous success worldwide. If this gets export clearance and is priced competitively, it should sell very well.
They need to further upgrade the engine. A speed of 580km/h using turbojet is not that great but I can understand the need to streamline the design and minimise the weight with a smaller jet engine.
 
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They need to further upgrade the engine. A speed of 580km/h using turbojet is not that great but I can understand the need to streamline the design and minimise the weight with a smaller jet engine.

Plus the design might not be suitable to take on higher speeds, especially the long and rather straight wings, no? What is the expected top speed, since 580km/h doesn't seem too bad, actually.
 
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