Stealth UCAVs would be very useful in a Taiwan scenario. Combat Eagle looks promising indeed. China must quickly catch up in drone tech(especially stealth) because t's the future of warfare. See Below:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/where-are-chinas-killer-drones/
Danger Room What's Next in National Security
Previous post
Next post
Where are China’s Killer Drones?
* By David Axe Email Author
*
* February 8, 2011 |
* 1:00 pm |
* Categories: China
*
*
BZK-005
A fast, stealthy fighter. An aircraft carrier. A heavily-armed attack helicopter. Satellites, satellite-killers and maybe even a rocket-powered space plane. After a decade of meteoric economic growth and expanding global ambitions, China now has weapons to match the U.S. in almost every category.
There’s at least one big missing piece — one that’s indicate of the ongoing technological limitations facing the People’s Liberation Army. Where, oh where, are China’s killer drones? That’s a question I attempt to answer in my latest feature for The Diplomat.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are a huge growth industry for the U.S. and its closest allies, and the source of one of America’s greatest military advantages. Starting in the mid-1990s, the unarmed Predator drone helped the U.S. build an unprecedented, persistent surveillance system capable of spotting targets around the clock. Later, armed with missiles, the Predator became an aerial sniper, picking off hundreds of insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan every year.
The Reaper — a bigger, more powerful Predator — proved a better spy and a more lethal killer. The secretive RQ-170 added a measure of stealth. To further improve drones’ bombing prowess, the Pentagon and industry are developing no fewer than three stealthy, jet-powered UAVs. Northrop’s X-47 killer drone, which will also be capable of flying off aircraft carriers, flew for the first time last week.
Against this fast-expanding fleet of killer drones, China has just a handful of inelegant UAV prototypes. There were two dozen different aerial bots on display at the Zhuhai Airshow in southern China last year, but almost all of them were small, flimsy models that John Pike, from Globalsecurity.org, called “easy to do.”
China does possess prototypes for at least four medium-size drones similar in dimension to the Predator and Reaper. These include the propeller-driven Yilong and BZK-005 and the jet-powered Tianchi and WJ-600. The BZK-005 is the only one of these four drones to show up in a photo depicting a seemingly operational environment. That photo, seen above, was leaked onto the Internet in October 2009 and showed just two BZK-005s at what appeared to be an active PLAAF airstrip. Otherwise, China’s four medium drones appear to be mere prototypes. And only the WJ-600 is said to be capable of carrying weapons.
What’s holding China back? Engines, for one. Chinese industry has not proved capable of developing reliable military-grade motors. That’s been the biggest thing holding back China’s new fighters and choppers — and now apparently drones, too.
“Another obstacle probably is real-time, on-time delivery of precision photo imagery,” observed Arthur Ding, an analyst based in Taiwan. The Pentagon possesses scores of communications satellites for linking drones, ground troops and imagery analysts; China has just a handful of similar spacecraft. The same communication problem could also inhibit the PLA’s ability to control its UAVs.
But China’s biggest shortfall is probably not a matter of hardware. It takes nearly 200 skilled pilots, maintainers and analysts to support a single sortie by a high-end drone airplane. “There’s nothing unmanned about them,” former Air Force intel chief Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula said about cutting-edge drones. After a decade of war, the Pentagon employs tens of thousands of experienced robot-handlers. Hardware aside, it could take many years for China to build similar human capital.
Overall, the Chinese “are about two decades behind the U.S. in military technology,” Pike asserted. Hardware, software and manpower equivalent to what the Pentagon possessed in 1990 are all perfectly adequate for building aircraft carriers, attack choppers and even stealth fighters. But they won’t get you a lethal drone air force like America’s — at least not any time soon.
Photo: Via China Military Aviation
See Also:
