Chinese engineers at Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAC), the company conglomerate which produce some of the most successful current and future fighters of the PLAAF (People’s Liberation Army Air Force), must be Star Wars fans.
Indeed, images that have appeared on several Chinese blogs and forums, seem to suggest that the CAC’s new UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), reportedly a variable wing model, was somehow inspired by the X-wings starfighters from the original Star Wars trilogy.
Image credit: Chinese Internet via China Defense Mashup
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.
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4 Comments
So inspired by this most amazing in design technologies, I now unveil to the global community my “advanced” gen 5 armed UAV concept.
The first pic is during a night operation and the second pic is during a daytime training mission. :)
Looks like they just got the latest installment of Ace Combat for Xbox and PS3
LOL! It looks like it spins as it flies.
It looks like an experimental RC model.
EDF on top, 2.4GHz rx antennas and ESC cables hanging out, thin rods from servos to the control surfaces etc.
So inspired by this most amazing in design technologies, I now unveil to the global community my “advanced” gen 5 armed UAV concept.
The first pic is during a night operation and the second pic is during a daytime training mission. :)
Looks like they just got the latest installment of Ace Combat for Xbox and PS3
LOL! It looks like it spins as it flies.
It looks like an experimental RC model.
EDF on top, 2.4GHz rx antennas and ESC cables hanging out, thin rods from servos to the control surfaces etc.