Recent satellite photos seem to show the ultra-high-speed reconnaissance drone project developed by the 611 Chengdu Institute, and suggest that the machine would have already entered service at within the Chinese armed forces.
On the image taken probably in Malan (马兰) / Hoxud (和 硕) in Xinjiang province on June 7, we can see several different models of drone lining up in front of the hangars.
Most of these drones remain more or less recognizable, for example we identify the MALE Wing Loong II (or CH-5) drone with its long-range wing that has sold a hundred copies to customers in the Middle East , the EA-03 used by the Navy and the Chinese Air Force for strategic reconnaissance that is easily distinguished by its rhomboid wings, the supposed CH-3 with a pair of ducks in the front, or the ASN-301 anti-radiation drone derived from the Israeli Harpy.
But one of them, a black triangular drone, is totally unrecognizable and has apparently never appeared publicly until now. A quick comparison with the other drones alongside shows that the craft is about 12.1 meters long for a wingspan of 5.6 meters.
The physical aspect of this mysterious drone thus suggests that it is rather designed for a high flight speed. The image analysis also suggests that it is powered, possibly with a RBCC or TBCC type motor.
These first elements converge towards the project of a hypersonic drone revealed three years ago by an article in the newspaper China Aviation News , a daily newspaper of the Chinese manufacturer AVIC. Several elements of this hypersonic project have already been studied in our file ” The Chinese hypersonic drone finally revealed? And recent clues also suggest that small-scale production of this drone may have already begun .
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Of course we have to wait for other institutional elements to confirm the link between this drone appeared in early June in the satellite images and the so-called project of the 611 Chengdu Institute, but it is virtually certain that no matter the true nature of the the fact that it is located in the Air Base Unit 95835, which is responsible for training and transforming pilots and drone operators for the Chinese Air Force , means that the project has at least has reached a certain technical maturity and has either already entered active service or is in the process of becoming active.
Source: East Pendulum (Translation by Google)