Is China Ahead of America in Next-Generation Unmanned Aircraft?
Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli
November 13, 2018
The China Airshow in Zhuhai is the annual exhibition that China uses, for both political and commercial reasons, to display the progress of her aerospace capabilities. Like previous editions, this year’s event saw China unveil several technologies, including a thrust-vectoring low-bypass turbofan engine and a jam-resistant and counter-stealth quantum-radar. The bulk of the attention, however, went to the mockup of a new stealth drone, the CH-7, that resembles Northrop Grumman’s XB-47B demonstrator.
Many analysts and observers reacted to this news with concern, and some commentators even concluded that, with this new achievement, China has already passed or will soon pass the United States in next-generation unmanned aircraft technology. Sam Brannen, for example, goes as far as to claim that “We [the United States] were a leader and now we are a laggard, stuck with expensive manned options and not doing nearly the experimentation and learning we need to. We’ll need to watch and learn from China and others now.â€
https://warontherocks.com/2018/11/is-china-ahead-of-america-in-next-generation-unmanned-aircraft/
