WZ-8 Supersonic Reconnaissance UAV

Moose said:
China was putting their best foot forward to impress everyone. If those lugs could be unscrewed in 5 minutes, they would have been.
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Unless the message they wanted to send was, "we're launching these from a plane".
 
sferrin said:
Moose said:
China was putting their best foot forward to impress everyone. If those lugs could be unscrewed in 5 minutes, they would have been.
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Unless the message they wanted to send was, "we're launching these from a plane".
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I think that launching drones from a plane is a bad idea, look at what happened to the M21-D21 when the USAF tried to launch the D-21 from the mothership it crashed causing the death's of the two crew members.
 
FighterJock said:
sferrin said:
Moose said:
China was putting their best foot forward to impress everyone. If those lugs could be unscrewed in 5 minutes, they would have been.
Click to expand...

Unless the message they wanted to send was, "we're launching these from a plane".
Click to expand...

I think that launching drones from a plane is a bad idea, look at what happened to the M21-D21 when the USAF tried to launch the D-21 from the mothership it crashed causing the death's of the two crew members.
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A solitary event doesn't negate the success of thousands of other missions flown. (Probably tens of thousands given the plethora of drones going all the way back to the 60s.)
 
D21 went then to be air launched from B-52 pylons with success (booster)...

B-52_with_D-21.jpg
 
sferrin said:
Moose said:
China was putting their best foot forward to impress everyone. If those lugs could be unscrewed in 5 minutes, they would have been.
Click to expand...

Unless the message they wanted to send was, "we're launching these from a plane".
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Valid. My point was, the lugs weren't non-flight hardware left attached as an afterthought. One should assume they'll still be in place in flight when attempting to estimate the aircraft's capabilities.
 
Lugs are probably sockets that goes on top of the flight worthy ones in order to fit the size of standards handling hardware. That way no pins to secure or dedicated hardware that have to be flown on site.
 
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FighterJock said:
I think that launching drones from a plane is a bad idea, look at what happened to the M21-D21 when the USAF tried to launch the D-21 from the mothership it crashed causing the death's of the two crew members.
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That was because the launch was at supersonic speed from the back of the M-21, and interaction with the carrier aircraft's shock waves caused the D-21 to descend back down onto the M-21. China doesn't have a supersonic aircraft capable of carrying a payload this big, it'll be dropped very conventionally from the belly of a subsonic H-6, so the risk is pretty moderate.
 
Trident said:
FighterJock said:
I think that launching drones from a plane is a bad idea, look at what happened to the M21-D21 when the USAF tried to launch the D-21 from the mothership it crashed causing the death's of the two crew members.
Click to expand...

That was because the launch was at supersonic speed from the back of the M-21, and interaction with the carrier aircraft's shock waves caused the D-21 to descend back down onto the M-21. China doesn't have a supersonic aircraft capable of carrying a payload this big, it'll be dropped very conventionally from the belly of a subsonic H-6, so the risk is pretty moderate.
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Thanks Trident, a converted H-6 bomber would make a good launching platform for the WZ-8.
 
FighterJock said:
Trident said:
FighterJock said:
I think that launching drones from a plane is a bad idea, look at what happened to the M21-D21 when the USAF tried to launch the D-21 from the mothership it crashed causing the death's of the two crew members.
Click to expand...

That was because the launch was at supersonic speed from the back of the M-21, and interaction with the carrier aircraft's shock waves caused the D-21 to descend back down onto the M-21. China doesn't have a supersonic aircraft capable of carrying a payload this big, it'll be dropped very conventionally from the belly of a subsonic H-6, so the risk is pretty moderate.
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Thanks Trident, a converted H-6 bomber would make a good launching platform for the WZ-8.
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Considering that was it's original role back in the day, I should think so.

Tu-16K-10-26-Badger-C-1S.jpg
 
How many WZ-8 would a converted H-6 bomber carry? One or two? Considering that the converted B-52’s carried two D-21’s on the inner pylons.
 
FighterJock said:
How many WZ-8 would a converted H-6 bomber carry? One or two? Considering that the converted B-52’s carried two D-21’s on the inner pylons.
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A B-52 is a damn sight bigger than an H-6. From the looks of it, one on the centerline. (At least they've been showing a semi-conformal fuselage slot, presumably for a WZ-8 or other munition.)

That said, they could carry a pair of 9,000lb AS-5 Kelts back in the day.
tu16_18.jpg
 
From the images it would appear the UAV is some 10 m long, 3.5 m wingspan. That's less than d21 at 5 tons, launch weight. I'd venture out to guess wz8 weight to be 3.5 to 4 tons.
 
ELINT makes more sense than SAR, especially when you'd be trying to out range things like E-2Ds and Aegis with a radar on a missile (not to mention those platforms own ESM).
 
Why the burden of an heavy undercarriage then? I think it's unlikely that this was the intended primary mission.
 
Yes, boost/glide I guess.

Vought's Regulus was however not a rocket plane ;)

You have a landing weight at the end of the mission that is basically that of an empty shell, a small fraction only of what it was at mission launch (think glider and soaring planes) .

That is why I am surprised to see a fully designed undercarriage.
 
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TomcatViP said:
Vought's Regulus was not a rocket plane ;)
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No, it was a missile. Pointing out that early test vehicles could have landing gear even if the production model might not. Does make me wonder how much range the thing could possibly have being rocket powered and expected to land. Come to think of it, a likely scenario might be the H-6 ranging way out over the Pacific, the missile flying to a REALLY high altitude, and gliding to one of their new "islands" soaking up RF all the way along. From 120,000 feet you could cover a swath 850 miles wide. From 150,000ft about 950 miles.
 
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Right. Got it. And I do agree for something that has heavy and expensive systems. But still. What do you think would be the mass fraction at recovery?
 
Regarding mission profile, I have more in mind something Eastward (launched over the Pacific toward China with Taiwan on the way) .
 
TomcatViP said:
Regarding mission profile, I have more in mind something Eastward (launched over the Pacific toward China with Taiwan on the way) .
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I was thinking maybe they'd use it to try to spot CVBGs for targeting their antiship ballistic missiles.
 
coanda said:
That looks like a flight capable aircraft to me. I am partly surprised that the carry lugs are not spring loaded and able to rotate to create a flush surface. I suppose the flow there will be turbulent anyway so not worth the effort. Looks like a high and fast recon UAV. Question is, could the H-8 get out past the target to fire the UAV back towards the landing site in the case of Taiwan. Seems less of an issue in the SCS where it may well be able to get from one side to the other.

From the look of that open upper access panel, I would suggest it has parachute braking. I imagine its pretty fast on landing so long runway or good decceleration capabilities.
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Recovery is optional. If you can get it back, good, but if you can't then losing it is not too big of a deal.
 
sferrin said:
In_A_Dream said:
overscan (PaulMM) said:
There's more shots of it posted online. It certainly isn't stealthy in detailed design.
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What do you believe its purpose is? It's kind of hard to tell.
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Probably rapid response recon. Maybe even something like a "loyal wingman" situation.
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Rapid response recon isn't that rapid if you have to wait for the H-6 to lift it to altitude and near to target. I'm pretty sure you could fly it Mach 4, above 70,000ft over a certain island of interest and it would be a rather challenging intercept, but what makes it better than satellites for this purpose? Presumably as satellites have predictable paths, this is useful to surprise an adversary and catch him off-guard. Not to mention the soft power of being able to fly with impunity over another country.
 
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overscan (PaulMM) said:
sferrin said:
In_A_Dream said:
overscan (PaulMM) said:
There's more shots of it posted online. It certainly isn't stealthy in detailed design.
Click to expand...

What do you believe its purpose is? It's kind of hard to tell.
Click to expand...
Probably rapid response recon. Maybe even something like a "loyal wingman" situation.
Click to expand...

Rapid response recon isn't that rapid if you have to wait for the H-6 to lift it to altitude and near to target. I'm pretty sure you could fly it Mach 4, above 70,000ft over a certain island of interest and it would be a rather challenging intercept, but what makes it better than satellites for this purpose? Presumably as satellites have predictable paths, this is useful to surprise an adversary and catch him off-guard. Not to mention the soft power of being able to fly with impunity over another country.
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Depends. Maybe you could get it over the area in question quicker than the next satellite pass. Also, it would be less predictable than a satellite. (As you point out.)
 
It'd probably be pretty good as a ferret, because an inbound return coming at high speed is going to get a lot of attention, giving you a glimpse of all those frequencies you are interested. Wouldn't want to have to buy insurance on them, though.

As someone noted above, if you had two of them (cut your latest CEP in thirds, and toss a flight on either side), you could probably make a rather large circle much smaller at the likely cost of two UAVs.
 
coanda said:
hmm the closer you look the worse the quality gets.
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Not sure I agree. Have you ever seen an SR-71 or a Space Shuttle up close? I got to see the Discovery while it was stacked up in the VAB. Thing looked like *garbage.* The average SR-71 looks almost like a film prop up close. You expect pristine, smooth, flawless... you get dents and wrinkles and rivets and dirt.
 
Thermal expansion (in the case of the A-12 serie). Think also that the boundary layer growth with the temperature. That helps a lot when dealing with such designs that have their own challenges.
 

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