Zhuhai Air Show | Zhuhai Surprises

Prasun K. Sengupta

The Airshow China 2022, or the 14th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, held from November 8 to 13, 2022, in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, was an aerospace expo only by name.

Zhuhai Air Show

For, the expo site was full of ground warfighting exhibits that included a wide variety of manned and unmanned armoured vehicles, tube and rocket artillery systems, ground-based air-defence systems, small arms and ammunition, warships of different types, and a wide variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Accompanied by marketing/sales literature in Arabic language, such exhibits were clearly aimed at export markets in conflict zones spread through the African continent and West Asia from where the issuance of end-user certificates is an exception. But some of the notable aerospace-related exhibits provided useful pointers towards ongoing research and development (R&D) efforts undertaken by China’s military-technical and military-industrial complexes.

Combat-Capable UAS

One such exhibit was a conceptual stealthy, tailless sixth-generation multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) design that was showcased at the Aviation Industry Corporation of China’s (AVIC) Ultravic kiosk.

Another notable exhibit was the unmanned FH-97A ‘loyal wingman’, shown by the China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation (CASC). The FH-97A’s fuselage, wings, and vertical stabilisers were all different from the baseline FH-97 design unveiled a year ago. The FH-97A features engine intakes on either side of the fuselage and are of a divert-less supersonic inlet (DSI) design. The FH-97A also features two distinct and exposed traditional engine exhaust nozzles at the rear, unlike the stealthy shrouded design seen on the earlier FH-97.

It is not clear if the FH-97A also has tricycle landing gear and is expected to take off and land from conventional runways. The FH-97 was designed to use a ground-based rocket-assisted take-off concept involving a static ground-based launcher. The FH-97A also houses an optronic sensor installed within a stealthy gold-plated windowed enclosure at the top, plus gold-coloured transparencies on either side of the forward fuselage, possibly housing dedicated side-looking sensors that could allow the FH-97A to spot and track multiple airborne and ground-launched targets from different angles, and do so in a way that is immune to radio-frequency jamming and is passive in nature, the latter feature helping to reduce the chance that opponents might know they have been detected at all.

The FH-97A also does away with the FH-97’s ventral internal stores bay for a pop-down launcher under the fuselage from which small anti-missile interceptors could be launched. This, in turn, would be capable of providing close-in air-defence for manned airborne combat-support platforms like aerial refuelling tankers, airborne early warning and control systems (AEW & CS), cargo aircraft and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, all of which would be primary targets for any opponent. This in turn could extend to escorting MRCAs or other UAVs and providing them close-in air-defence as part of a larger manned-uncrewed team force-mix. Overall, therefore, the FH-97A appears to be primarily intended for a loyal wingman-type role working together with crewed platforms.

Other, lower-end ‘loyal wingmans’ showcased at the expo included the LJ-1, launched from the Xi’an H-6K medium-bomber. Originally intended as a supersonic aerial target, the LJ-1 can be readily reconfigured into a lower-end tactical uncrewed air vehicle. Also shown at the expo was a full-scale mock-up of the reusable MD-22 unmanned, near-space hypersonic testbed that is 10.8 metres long, height of 1.6 metres, has a wingspan of 4.5 metres, empty weight of around 1 metric-tonne and a maximum take-off weight of 4 metric-tonnes, and is hyped to be able to hit speeds