{"id":32698,"date":"2013-05-11T09:11:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T08:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/first-chinese-stealth-drone-ready-for-test-flight\/32698\/"},"modified":"2013-05-11T09:11:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-11T08:11:00","slug":"first-chinese-stealth-drone-ready-for-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/first-chinese-stealth-drone-ready-for-test-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"First Chinese stealth drone 'ready' for test flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

The Chinese military is making preparations for the inaugural flight test of its newly designed unmanned combat vehicle, bringing the Asian powerhouse into the stealth technology race, Chinese media report.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), known as the Lijian
\n(‘sharp sword‘<\/i>), is designed jointly by the Hongdu Aviation
\nIndustry Group and Shenyang Aviation Corporation. The project was
\nlaunched in 2009 and the drone’s first ground test was conducted on
\nDecember 13 last year.<\/p>\n

The Lijian, which makes China the third country to possess
\nstealth drone capabilities, is now ready for flight testing, China
\nAviation News reported on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Chinese UAV is designed for use by the PLA Air Force and
\nNavy Air Force for combat missions, China Aviation News reported.
\nIt may also be used for tracking and reconnaissance along China\u2019s
\nlengthy and occasionally contentious border.<\/p>\n

Beijing\u2019s ambitious efforts at developing its drone capabilities
\nhave not escaped the attention of Taiwan, which has quarreled with
\nBeijing in the past over questions of sovereignty and national
\nidentity.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaiwan should be concerned about China\u2019s development of
\nlarge numbers of sophisticated military UAVs,\u201d<\/i> Ian Easton, a
\nresearch fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, told the Taipei
\nTimes.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s stealth drone is third such unmanned combat vehicle in
\nexistence, after the X-47 designed by the United States, and the
\nnEUROn, a collaborative effort of various EU companies.<\/p>\n

The nEUROn was launched in 2005 following an order by the French
\nDefense Procurement Agency. The program is a collaborative effort
\nbetween French, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek and Swiss defense
\ncompanies.<\/p>\n

The US Pentagon\u2019s X-47 stealth drone, designed by Northrop
\nGrumman, began as part of DARPA’s J-UCAS program, and is now part
\nof the US Navy’s UCAS-D (Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration)
\nprogram. The X-47 is still undergoing flight testing.<\/p>\n

The unveiling of the prototype places the People\u2019s Republic of
\nChina ahead of several nations in the development of stealth drone
\ntechnology.<\/p>\n

India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Russia also have their
\nown stealth UAV programs.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on : RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chinese military is making preparations for the inaugural flight test of its newly designed unmanned combat vehicle, bringing the Asian powerhouse into the stealth technology race, Chinese media report. China\u2019s first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), known as the Lijian (‘sharp sword‘), is designed jointly by the Hongdu Aviation Industry Group and Shenyang Aviation Corporation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}