Rainbow-7, using a flying wing layout, the fuselage has neither a vertical tail nor a flat tail, the shape is smooth and beautiful, and the ammunition is loaded into the built-in concealed bomb bay under the fuselage, which can effectively reduce the reflection cross-sectional area of the radar, so that it has excellent stealth performance.
The aircraft is equipped with a turbofan engine, and the air intakes are cleverly located above the fuselage, which can also eliminate the source of radar reflection and facilitate covert sorties. With a radar reflective surface of only 0.1 square meters, the Rainbow-7 is a high-performance, low-detectable UAV that is positioned as a strategic-level information support and high-value target strike aviation equipment.
The 11th Research Institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the research and development unit, said on the interactive platform at the end of last month that the Rainbow-7 prototype has verified the performance of the flight platform and the rationality of the fuselage structure design, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
According to open source information, the Rainbow-7 has a length of more than 10 meters, a wingspan of 22 meters, a practical ceiling of 13,000 meters, a flight speed of Mach 0.75-0.9, a maximum take-off weight of about 13-15 tons, and a built-in bomb bay carrying capacity of not less than 2 tons. The range is more than 10,000 kilometers, the combat radius is more than 4,000 kilometers, and the air time is up to 15 hours.
Depending on the combat mission, the Rainbow-7 can carry air-to-air missiles for air defense and air supremacy, and can also carry air-to-ground missiles, air-to-ship missiles, and precision-guided bombs to carry out ground attacks and sea strikes.
Rainbow-7, an unmanned stealth bomber, can perform continuous reconnaissance, air defense suppression, ground attack, combat support and other tasks in a high-risk environment, and has become a domestic cutting-edge UAV that netizens are hotly talking about, which is an extremely rare phenomenon in domestic UAVs, and has been raised to a considerable height by some netizens.
It is believed that this Rainbow-7 unmanned bomber with stealth performance, once it is born out of thin air and officially included in the Chinese army, to a certain extent, it can even replace the H-20 bomber to carry out air-to-ground strikes on high-value targets.
H-20, crew of 3-4 people, maximum take-off weight of 200 tons, the unit price of this stealth strategic bomber, if nothing else, at least two or three billion yuan to start, is far from enough. Refer to the H-6K medium-range bomber with a take-off weight of 95 tons, with a unit price of 1.5 billion yuan.
Rainbow-7 is a stealth unmanned bomber, with a normal bomb carrying capacity of 2 tons, a range of 10,000 kilometers, and a unit price of only 20 or 30 million yuan. This means that the cost of 100 Rainbow-7 unmanned bombers is comparable to that of one H-20 bomber, but the bomb carrying capacity is 200 tons, which is 10 times higher than the bomb carrying capacity of one H-20.
The combat effect of 1 H-20 bomber in wartime is naturally very different from the combat effect of 100 Rainbow-7 UAV bombers. There is no doubt that 100 Rainbow-7s will greatly improve combat effectiveness at a geometric level, and the cost performance is far greater than that of 1 H-20 bomber.
Rainbow-7, wartime will show extreme flexibility and efficiency, it can 24 hours a day uninterrupted all-weather to perform a variety of combat missions, leaving no respite for any opponent, Rainbow-7 wartime combat performance will be extremely strong.
Even if the Rainbow-7 unmanned bomber is damaged by a certain scale, as the world's largest industrialized country, the cost of mass production at full power will drop significantly. The cost of battle damage in wartime Rainbow-7 is bearable, and the cost performance of its equipment is extremely high.
According to this Guoping Vision Research and Judgment, the Rainbow-7 stealth unmanned bomber developed by the 11th Research Institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, once officially built, will show more dazzling advantages in many aspects than the traditional H-20.
Even if the H-20 strategic bomber fails to be included in the list for the time being, the majority of netizens who pay attention to the dynamics of the Chinese Air Force are also relieved.
As long as the Rainbow-7 can be equipped in large quantities, it can also replace the H-20 to a certain extent, and carry out campaign-level strikes against high-value targets such as long-range early warning radars, naval and air bases, missile defense positions, and surface ships moving at sea thousands of kilometers away.
This makes the Rainbow-7 stealth unmanned bomber a strategically significant air mobile combat platform, an extremely important air-to-ground/air-ship strike mobile platform in the Chinese People's Liberation Army's anti-access/area denial combat system, and a new high-tech and intelligent aviation aircraft will soon be added to our military's equipment system, which may change the rules of the game in future local wars.