China’s H-20 stealth strategic bomber has begun its test flights

On the morning of July 15, a number of photos of the Chinese Xiam H-20 strategic stealth bomber test flight appeared on the Internet. Although there are no text labels on these test flight photos. Earlier it was reported that H-20 ready for first flight and seems like it’s finally made it.

China begin to develop country first stealth strategic bomber from 2016 especially from 2018 to the beginning of 2021. In the promotional video of “Celebration of Great Powers” released by XAC at the earliest in 2018 for the 60th anniversary, a silhouette of a large stealth bomber with a flat wing aerodynamic layout same like US B2, covered with tarpaulin and marked “THE NEXT” appeared at the end. , This is also the first time the outside world has seen the basic appearance of the H-20.

This year July 5 WeChat public account of “China Test Flight” published an article about the upcoming first flight of a key model, although the content of the article did not mention the new aircraft model to be tested. However, it is mentioned that this key model has great strategic and historical significance.

Then, on the afternoon of July 11, some netizens exposed the aerial image of H-20 taken by a satellite. From the image, it can be seen vaguely, in addition to still parked a large number of Y-20 strategic transport aircraft and Outside the H-6 series of long-range bombers, at the gate of this temporary white-roofed factory building on the west side, two new aircraft with a ” triangular ” shape and a light yellow color appeared vaguely. Two major features, it seems that it can be inferred that if this picture is true, the two aircraft should be the “H-20 new generation stealth strategic bomber” that has been rumored.

Unexpectedly, on July 15, some netizens posted that on the evening of July 14, they accidentally photographed a test flight of a new type of aircraft with a large flying-wing aerodynamic layout. If this photo is true, combined with Judging from various official media news in the past two weeks, the H-20 seems to be really flying for the first time.

Judging from its test flight picture, in the first photo with a dark red background in the sunset, this new aircraft with a triangular flying wing aerodynamic layout is climbing at a large elevation angle, and the nose is sharp and the entire wingspan of the fuselage is sharp. Not big, but there seems to be a vertical tail;

And if the second photo is also true, then this should belong to the state of normal level flight. However, the flying attitude of the H-20 in this photo is completely different from the previous one. The vertical tail and horizontal tail cannot be seen, but it can be clearly seen that the head of the H-20 has a high bulge, and there are also traditional strategic bombers. fuselage tail vertebra.

Combining the content of these two photos of different flight attitudes, this new type of flying-wing aircraft seems to be very similar to the overall aerodynamic layout of the H-20 released in the sixth issue of “Modern Weapons” in 2021. , The raised nose design also has a relatively slender outer wing design and a similar tail vertebra design.

According to the details and data published on “Modern Weapons” and the well-known American military website “1945”, the H-20, which is finally being tested by China is the same as the American B2 strategic bomber, although it adopts a flying-wing aerodynamic layout to meet its stealth and safety requirements. Long-distance voyage requirements. However, in order to avoid the problem of poor high-speed flight because the flying wing type does not have a vertical tail transmission like the B2.

The tail of the H-20 still continues the classic W-shaped flaps of the flying wing, but the flaps at the tail can be folded up to act as vertical tails during high-speed flight or during the take-off and landing phase, helping the H-20 fly stably at high speed; At low speed or when penetration is required, the flaps are lowered and connected to the fuselage to increase the stealth performance of the H-20.

And according to the data given by the well-known American military website “1945”, the maximum take-off weight of H-20 is 180-200 tons. Missiles, air-launched hypersonic missiles and other weapons and ammunition up to 45 tons. At the same time, the nose adopts advanced airborne active phased array radar and avionics system, with a maximum combat radius of 10,000 kilometers and a maximum flight range of 16,000 kilometers. distance.

In conclusion, although the various news about H-20 at this stage has not been officially warmed up or officially confirmed, all kinds of evidence seem to have shown that these news should be “true”.