China’s Yunying Stealth Drone, Stealth, Highly Maneuverable Target Drones

Yunying drone displayed for the first time. Photo: mil.huauqiu.com/Ma Jun

Yunying’s air inlet located at its upper back mil.huanqiu.com photo

The large variety of weapons Yuying can carry give full play to its strike capabilities mil.news.sina.com.cn photo

Small YJ-9E anti-ship missile the Yunying can carry mil.news.sina.com.cn photo

Avenger is obviously a better attack stealth drone than Yunying as it has internal weapon bay mil.news.sina.com.cn photo

China’s stealth target drone that looks like a US stealth warplane. Photo from Internet

Mil.huanqiu.com says in its report on October 28 that China’s new stealth reconnaissance drone Yunying attracts military fans’ keen interest. As a real instead of model of the new drone will be showcased in Zhuhai Airshow November 1 to 6, its reporter went to the exhibition to see it in advance and took some of the above photos.

Mil.news.sina.com.cn says in its report the next day that Yunying can carry 6 weapons on its wings, which make it much easier to detect but enable it to immediately attack the targets it finds. It can carry various kinds of bombs and missiles including YJ-9E anti-ship missiles.

According to another mil.huanqiu.com report yesterday, Yunying is 9 meters long with a wingspan of 17 meters. Its normal takeoff weight is three tons. At present, there are three versions of Yunying: a reconnaissance attack one that can carry six weapons on its wings but not so stealth, an electronic reconnaissance one and a video reconnaissance one. The latter two are much better stealth and can remain in air much longer as they do not carry weapons on their wings.

They may coordinate with others in combat through data links to enable others including the reconnaissance attack version to attack the targets they find. The reconnaissance attack version may hit small fast targets on water surface with its YJ-9E light anti-ship missile.

The report says that there are quite a few drones on display in Zhuhai Airshow. The most interesting is a stealth target drone and a target drone with high maneuverability.

The former looks like a shrunk B-2 stealth bomber. Its radar cross section is only 0.01 square meter ideal to test the capabilities of air defense in detecting, identifying and intercepting stealth targets.

The latter has better maneuverability than F-22 and can even proactively make sharp change of its flight trajectory in order to test Chinese air force’s capabilities in dealing with highly maneuverable aerial vehicles.

Sources: mil.huanqiu.com “Complete detailed views of Yunying drone from all directions” and “First display of China’s Yunying drone with lots of functions better than Global Hawk” and mil.news.sina.com.cn “Depth Column: Analysis of China’s new Yunying drone with extremely good attack capability” (summary by Chan Kai Yee based on the report in Chinese)

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