China Exclusive: China's Wing Loong UAS creates record of "five hits in succession"

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- China's newly-developed Wing Loong II UAS, a high-end reconnaissance-strike unmanned aerial system (UAS), has created a record "five hits in succession," its developer announced Sunday.

After multiple rounds of flight and firing tests, the Wing Loong II UAS has achieved a hit rate of 100 percent, said the state-owned aviation giant of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).

"The Wing Loong II UAS has successfully hits five targets in succession with five different types of missiles in a single sortie, setting a new live firing record for Chinese UAS," AVIC said.

To date, the newly-developed reconnaissance-strike-integrated UAS has conducted firing tests with eight types of missiles and dozens of bombs, with a hit rate of 100 percent.

The Wing Loong II UAS is a China-developed new generation of long endurance reconnaissance-strike-integrated UAS by AVIC's Chengdu Aircraft Design & Research Institute (CADI).

The system is composed of the ground station and various numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

It successfully completed its maiden flight in northwestern China on Feb. 27 this year, showing that China was capable of developing large-scale reconnaissance-strike UAS to international standards.

Within 10 months of its maiden flight, multiple live firing tests had been conducted in accordance with the requirement of its customers, including stationary targets, moving targets, time sensitive targets and air-ground coordination.

Meanwhile, the Wing Loong II UAS has successfully conducted the "control of two vehicles with one station," which had never been achieved by a Chinese UAS before.

According to CADI, in the 10-month flight tests, the Wing Loong II UAS accomplished a series of flight missions to verify the UAS platform, payload, weapons and ground control station.

"All the performance specifications of Wing Loong II UAS are validated comprehensively through high-intensity and concentrated flight tests, which shows that it has met user requirements and possesses full operational capability," CADI said.

"Seven years after its launch on the market, the Wing Loong series has been successfully equipped by multiple users, going through tests in various severe environments," said Ji Xiaoguang, CADI president. "It has realized operation normalization, been used in actual combat, and made remarkable achievements. It has earned a good reputation in many countries and established brand recognition of Chinese 'Wing Loong' worldwide."

The Wing Loong II UAS has already obtained the largest order of Chinese advanced large-scale UAVs in the overseas market, even before its maiden flight.

To date, Wing Loong I and II UAS have realized high quality and quick delivery as per contract requirements signed with foreign customers. Both have accomplished long-distance handovers to execute missions, according to CADI. Enditem