At the new Zhuhai Air Show, China has successively launched various types of new weapons, which have attracted widespread attention from foreign media, especially the newly displayed Feihong 97A unmanned fighter and new high-tech missiles. US media "War Zone" issued an article saying that China's launch of the Feihong 97A unmanned fighter at the air show is of great significance, which is the invisible unmanned "loyal wingman" of the J-20AS fighter, which represents China's technological achievements in AI UAV fighters. Although this aircraft is suspected of copying the US MQ-28 drone, it is still more advanced in terms of performance, especially in air combat and coordination with stealth fighters.
The Phenom 97A unmanned stealth fighter is an improved version of the Feihong 97 UAV, the basic shape of the fuselage, wings and vertical stabilizer of the Feihong 97A UAV is different from the original Phenom 97, its engine air intakes are located on both sides of the fuselage, not the common top of the UAV. The air intakes are designed with DSI, which is the same design for stealth fighters, and the F-35 and J-20 both use DSI intakes, which help enhance the aircraft's overall stealth performance.
Moreover, the tail of the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter has obvious serrated stealth treatment, somewhat similar to the American F22 stealth fighter, and the arrangement is to enhance the stealth performance of the aircraft. And the most eye-catching is the EOTS system on the fuselage of the Feihong 97A unmanned stealth fighter, which is similar to the system currently equipped with stealth fighters in China and the United States, which indicates that the Feihong 97A unmanned stealth fighter has an infrared detection and search / locking system that other UAVs do not have, and some analysts believe that this is specially designed to strengthen the air combat and reconnaissance capabilities of the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter.
Moreover, the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter itself is equipped with an on-board active phased array radar, which is specially designed to lock on to the target, this time with an infrared system search device. According to the official statement, the distributed photoelectric aperture detection system and intelligent skin perception system equipped with the Feihong 97A unmanned stealth fighter have realized 360° full-coverage optical and electronic reconnaissance under stealth conditions, can quickly reach the combat zone within a combat radius of 1000 kilometers, and implement more than 6 hours of all-day, all-weather, all-territory battlefield situational awareness, which shows that the detection system of the Feihong 97A unmanned stealth fighter is even more luxurious than ordinary fighters.
In addition, compared with the original Phenom 97, the Feihong 97A unmanned stealth fighter canceled the design of the side bomb bay, and designed a new bomb bay in the belly, and it is retractable, using an eight-pack launcher, which is suspected to be equipped with small infrared combat shells. Surprisingly, through such a layout, it can be seen that the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter should not be able to carry large air-to-air missiles used by fighters, such as PL-8 or PL-10 close-range combat bombs, but use smaller infrared combat missiles, which do not seem to be able to intercept manned aircraft, but are specifically aimed at intercepting UAVs, after all, it is too small and relatively limited in power.
The US media believe that this bomb bay shooting is a copy of the United States, because the US Northrop Grumman Company also applied for a patent for a stealth aircraft anti-missile loading system with a general appearance similar to the Fei Hong 97A.
In addition, there are also views that the eight-pack launcher used in the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter should be a multi-purpose bomb bay, which can be equipped with different weapons according to different combat needs, such as small unmanned aerial vehicles, air-launched unmanned decoy bombs, small gliding bombs and anti-missile interceptor missiles.
The US media said that the design concept of the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter is too similar to the US-made MQ-28 UAV, although the connection between the two is not clear, but China has always liked to copy US military weapons, and eighty percent copied the US design. For example, former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former U.S. President Trump have claimed that China's stealth fighters copied American designs, and it can only be said that the views of the US media are still in the same line as these senior US officials.
However, there is no indication that the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter has conducted test flights, and it remains to be seen whether the Fei Hong 97A unmanned stealth fighter will officially enter the PLA. However, Tiger Niu believes that the Feihong 97A unmanned stealth fighter can carry out multi-purpose joint operations with the J-20AS through aerial networking, and the combination of UAV + manned aircraft will greatly improve the comprehensive combat capability.
Regarding the argument of so-called plagiarism, Tiger Niu is too lazy to refute. If it's really plagiarism, why are the planes we copied better than their own originals? Therefore, about this anti-intellectual remark, that is, the European and American media put aside all day to be self-congratulating, unwilling to face up to China's technological achievements in related fields, so they buried their heads in the ground and simply turned a blind eye.