And the pictures prove what? Only that the system is in testing, and a few years from being proven. Given the history of CH-3, and CH-4, would CH-5 be miraculously different?
Everything looks good on paper, but such huge investment (speculated to be 10 million clean config, 20 million with payloads), in a MALE bird means less birds for the customer. With the program history, the attrition is expected to be high. In contested airspace, loss of one such bird will be a huge loss for a country like Pakistan.
I believe that this is a later step for Pakistan. Current step would be to make their own MALE unmanned platform, and if there are struggles with autopilot and telemetry, then use specialist input. Once the MALE bird doctrine are established, then progress to a combat capability by integrating whatever weapons are available. The Chinese weapons such as AR-1 and FT-9 are obvious contenders. Once the weaponized capability and sensor nodes are well absorbed in operation, then leap to upgrade of the wing to carry additional stores. This can be a 2-4 year process where Pakistan will come out as a sustainable producer for MALE UAV birds. However, trying to leap towards the Chinese concept will kill the ambitions of a local industry, not allow for local content, and make us further dependent on foreign designs and approaches, which in-fact already is a borrowed concept and not original design approach.
There is a next step for Pakistan after the above, and is to consider development of low-observable HALE drones for persistent and long duration surveillance at high altitude. This will add to the network enabled warfare which is the essential requirement.
Who is the admin? Can they deal with the Chinese insult brigade as I dont have the time or patience.
