Is this China’s new Long Range Strike stealth aircraft?

The following image, found by Chinese military aviation expert Andreas Rupprecht, shows the shape of what could be a future Chinese stealth bomber plane.

True or false? A model plane or just the base of a future radar evading attack plane?

Hard to say.

For sure, the shape of this alleged LRS (long range strike) stealth aircraft is intriguing and shows input from several existing U.S. planes, including the F-117 Nighthawk and the YF-23.  Furthermore, some of Beijing’s works were leaked in the form scale models during local exhibitions hence, even if unlikely, it is not completely impossible that the one depicted in the photographs and artwork above is the Chinese answer to the Russian sixth-generation pilotless strategic bomber based on the PAK-DA or the American X-51, Falcon HTV-2 and other hypersonic development programs on which U.S.’s perspective strike capability will be based.

China is working a lot on stealth planes.

Last month, few hours before the U.S. Navy launched the the Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator off the deck of an aircraft carrier for the first time, images of China’s first weaponized stealth drone emerged from the Chinese Internet.

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About David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.