The Chinese Air Force May Be Getting a Hypersonic Drone

Chinese researchers say that they have made major strides toward designing a hypersonic drone, but key questions remain. In a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Tactical Missile Technology, Beihang University's Dai Fei and his team posited that they have made significant progress on a classified hypersonic drone model. Their work, first reported by the South China Morning Post, appears to confirm the existence of a Chinese military program to design an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of traveling at hypersonic speeds. The Post cited China's Air Force Engineering University Professor Wang Xing's suggestion that such drones can potentially be used to target U.S. fifth-generation fighters like the F-22 Raptor. We should not inherently assume that the first serial iterations of hypersonic drones will offer meaningful air-to-air capabilities. If this prospective new drone is an advanced modification of the Wuzhen 8, then it should be noted that the latter is a reconnaissance craft that likely has no payload. Without diminishing the value of this latest research, we should likewise not forget that China is neither the first nor only country investing in hypersonic UAV technology. The Pentagon has repeatedly expressed interest in this domain in recent years, with recent reports noting that tech startup Hermeus is developing a reusable hypersonic drone- dubbed "Quarterhorse"- for the Air Force.