The development of China’s stealth fighter jets has attracted global attention, but the Financial Times quoted analysts on the 15th as saying that the debut of China’s attack drones is equally significant, “This is a rapidly emerging area in the defense competition with the United States.”
Last month, the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition was held in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, and the Feihong UAV FH-97A was unveiled at the air show. Positioned as a “loyal wingman”, the FH-97A supports manned fighters in reconnaissance and decoy operations, and it can also be launched from an aircraft carrier.
With the rapid development of science and technology, drones have become a powerful weapon in modern warfare. Armies around the world are seeking to optimize their arsenals with the latest drone technology.
Analysts say wingman drones are now at the heart of the technological race between China and the United States for air superiority, and that competition will only become more urgent in the future.
Ni Lexiong, a military analyst and professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said the FH-97A will become extremely important in the future. “Future wars will be a showdown between drones and anti-drone technology.”
Peter Layton, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said wingman drones have given Chinese manufacturers an opportunity to catch up with the U.S. military.
He said China has built and tested some wingman drones, with the goal of “cooperating with” the two-seat J-20, China’s older generation of stealth fighter jets. But few details were revealed at the air show, and it is unclear which country will lead the development of wingman drones.
FH-97A was developed by Feihong Company of the 9th Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and is the leader of the “Feihong” series of UAVs. As a new generation of high-altitude and high-speed unmanned combat platform, it can not only flexibly perform air and ground combat missions, but also has a high degree of autonomous intelligence. It can significantly improve the efficiency and adaptability of mission execution through pre-configured typical mission samples and real-time heterogeneous mission phase processes; through embedded or external multi-type weapons, high-resolution sensors and other systems, it can independently organize/many people to cooperate in battlefield reconnaissance and surveillance, target positioning, precision strikes and other combat missions, fully meeting the needs of strong confrontation and high-intensity sustained combat.
“The FH-97A UAV conforms to the four (main) trends in weapons development. It has the characteristics of unmanned, miniaturized, intelligent and stealth,” said Ni Lexiong.
The report pointed out that countries are currently competing to build wingman drones because this can significantly enhance air power at a lower cost than producing manned fighter jets and training pilots.
Analysts say the United States is pushing ahead with its own “loyal wingman” program, the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), after its sixth-generation fighter jet development project ran into trouble.
Flight International previously reported that the US Department of Defense leaders envision the deployment of hundreds or thousands of “cooperative combat aircraft” CCA in the future to support traditional fighter formations composed of aging aircraft. The US Air Force’s director of design and integration once said that “future cooperative combat aircraft will take on the role of ‘missile trucks’ and will have a significant impact on future battlefields.”
“Loyal wingman is one of those things that every air force, every major company wants,” said Sash Tusa, aerospace and defense analyst at Agency Partners, an investment research group. “As manned fighters get more expensive, this is a way to restore scale, a way to increase geographic coverage, a way to increase weapons loadout.”
Tusa estimates it would take five to ten years for the militaries of major countries to deploy such technology, with cost-effective production a major hurdle. “If anyone does it first, it’s probably going to be the Chinese or the Americans,” he said.
Other experts said that based on the available information, China’s “loyal wingman” has an advantage because they appear to be capable of carrying out ground strikes.
James Char, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and an expert on the Chinese military, told the Financial Times that the United States and China are also developing a variety of land and sea drones, such as China’s “robot wolf.”
Last month, my country’s independently developed four-legged “robot wolf” was displayed for the first time at the Zhuhai Air Show. Military observer Teng Jianqun said in an interview with the media that the “robot wolf” is actually a robot warrior. After adding guns and sensors, it can flexibly shuttle through the streets and alleys, shuttle through every corner of the battlefield, and perform relevant combat tasks. In essence, the advent of the “robot wolf” reflects that we attach great importance to the use of robot warriors. Humans do not need to pay it wages or provide it with food. As long as it is given enough ammunition, it can intelligently perform tasks that were originally required to be performed by soldiers.
“We’ve seen a lot of reports about what these drones can do on the battlefield, but what they can actually do, no one is really sure,” Chall said.