The good news about the successful electromagnetic catapult test of the Fujian aircraft carrier has not yet faded, and there is another new surprise.

Whether everyone remembers or not, in the aerial unmanned combat formation that appeared during the 9.3 military parade, the "Chu Jian-11" drone leading through Tiananmen Square had a "21" number painted on its nose - recently, CCTV finally confirmed that this drone is not the "Chu Jian-11" drone we remember, but the "Chu Jian-21" drone.

The "Chu Jian-11" with the number 21 painted on it

In the news report on the 27th regarding the successful electromagnetic catapult of the Fujian aircraft carrier, when introducing that the Fujian may be equipped with a new type of carrier-based drone in the future, CCTV showed a shot of various types of drones that appeared at the 9.3 military parade. Among them, the "Chu Jian-11" was clearly marked as the "Chu Jian-21" drone.

From an appearance perspective, the Chu Jian-21 and the Chu Jian-11 have similar overall aerodynamic layout, both adopting a large sweep angle flying wing and back intake design. The detailed difference lies in the fact that the Chu Jian-21 has a faintly visible gap on the wing part, which means that the wing of this aircraft adopts a folding design, indicating that the Chu Jian-21 is specially prepared for shipboard use.

Deploying drones on aircraft carriers or amphibious assault ships is also one of the development ideas of navies around the world in recent years. The U.S. Navy proposed this concept as early as 2000 and completed the first test of a tailless flying wing drone (X-47B) taking off from the "Bush" aircraft carrier and landing with a barrier in 2013.

CCTV confirms that "Chu Jian-11" is actually "Chu Jian-21"

However, the U.S. Navy's pioneering "Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration Program" could not continue to be promoted, and eventually was changed by the Pentagon into the "Carrier-Based Unmanned Aerial Refueling System", later known as the "Bluefin" drone.

The reason why the U.S. Navy gave up the carrier-based combat drone is because the Pentagon believed that before the technology of high-performance stealth unmanned attack aircraft is fully mature, solving the problem of aerial refueling for carrier-based aircraft to expand the operational range of manned aircraft is a more urgent and practical choice at that time.

Another country that has developed and made breakthroughs in carrier-based drones is Turkey. But how should we describe Turkey's carrier-based drone program...

Last year, Turkey's independently developed "Bayraktar TB-3" drone completed its first takeoff and landing tests on the deck of its naval light aircraft carrier "Anadolu", claiming to become the world's first aircraft carrier that mainly uses drones as its carrier aircraft.

This Turkish drone carrier test is not ordinary

But it needs to be noted that the water content of this Turkish test is very high: on the one hand, the drone slid from the end of the aircraft carrier's deck all the way to the ski-jump deck to achieve takeoff; on the other hand, the "Anadolu" did not install a barrier cable, but used a barrier net to recover the drone.

Even making an inappropriate analogy, the technical content of Turkey's drone carrier technology is comparable to that of propeller planes during World War II taking off and landing from aircraft carriers.

After talking about the U.S. Navy, which failed to make progress, and the watered-down Turkish drone carrier, let's now look at China.

Although there is currently no official information confirming that the Chu Jian-21 has been tested on board, since this aircraft appeared at the military parade, it indicates that the Chu Jian-21 is already a current service equipment of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

If the U.S. Navy had continued with the X-47B program, the situation might have been different

Indeed, the Chu Jian-21 can be considered the carrier-based stealth combat drone that the U.S. Navy dreamed of. Previously, the U.S. "The Drive" website introduced our large flying wing drone and lamented that China is making unprecedented breakthroughs in this field, while the original leader, the U.S. Navy, does not have a stealth flying wing carrier-based drone.

Compared to Turkey's half-baked carrier-based drone, whether it is our Fujian aircraft carrier or Sichuan aircraft carrier (076), or the Chu Jian-21 drone, their technological content is far higher than the combination of Turkey's "Bayraktar" drone and the "Anadolu" aircraft carrier.

If China officially announces that the Chu Jian-21 drone has successfully taken off and landed on the Fujian aircraft carrier or the Sichuan aircraft carrier (076), this will mean that China will become the first country in the world to launch large carrier-based drones using electromagnetic catapults, and the Sichuan aircraft carrier will become the first real unmanned aircraft carrier.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7555430215435747882/

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