BEIJING – China’s most advanced medium-range strike drone set a new recordin live fire tests by hitting “five targets in succession” with five uniquemissile types, the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China(AVIC) recently told Chinese news outlets.
“The Wing Loong II UAS [unmanned aerial system] has successful hit fivetargets in succession with five different types of missiles in a singlesortie, setting a new record for Chinese UAS,” the aviation company saidin a January 2 report for the Xinhua News Agency. The tests “over differenttypes of terrains with different types of missiles and bombs showed theWing Loong II is equipped to effectively handle combat operation,” SongZhongping, a Chinese military analyst, told the Global Times.
The Wing Loong II unmanned aerial system has also test-fired eightdifferent types of missiles and dozens of bombs to date, Xinhua reportedJanuary 2, “with a hit rate of 100 percent.”
The Wing Loong II is upgraded from the original Wing Loong to carry up to12 missiles instead of two. The aviation firm did not disclose the typesof weapons tested, but the UAS was displayed alongside the FT-9, FT-10,LS-6 guided munitions and TL-2, CM-502 and the Norinco Blue Arrow 7air-to-surface missiles at the Paris Air Show last June.
China reportedly won its first major contract to sell the Wing Loong IIto a foreign buyer in March 2017. “Following the United States, Chinabecomes another country capable of developing such large reconnaissance andstrike UAS,” Li Yidong, chief designer of the Wing Loong drone series, toldXinhua at the time.[image: US Air Force, an MQ-9 Reaper]
Xinhua did not disclose the identity of the buyer nor the size of the orderat the time of the announcement. The first Wing Loong variant was procuredby international clients including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United ArabEmirates, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Diplomat has reported.
Military observers have noted that the Wing Loong I bears an uncannyresemblance to the MQ-1 Predator while the Wing Loong II looks remarkablysimilar to the MQ-9 Reaper.