In the Russia-Ukraine war, the use of drone technology was truly brilliant. It has frequently appeared in surveillance and investigation, and carried out precision strikes, and has repeatedly made extraordinary achievements, creating legends in modern warfare.
The application of drone tactics is the trend on the battlefield in the future. Our country's military drone technology has always been in the world's leading position. The technical and tactical parameters of UAVs such as our Rainbow series UAVs, Wing Loong UAV and other UAVs are in no way inferior to, or even better than, world-famous UAVs (such as the American Global Hawk , etc.).
In terms of military industry drone exports, our exports also rank among the top two in the world, second only to the United States. And this ranking in second place is more because our drones are of high quality and low price. Compared with the U.S. drones that often cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase, our drones are at a bargain price—you can buy a large number of ours if you buy one from the United States.
But low price does not mean that our technology is not advanced. Like the report just released by the Japanese Ministry of Defense in the New Year: According to the Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) report on the night of January 1, the Japanese Ministry of Defense announced that a Chinese Unconventional-7 unmanned reconnaissance aircraft was found in the sky near Okinawa, and Japan Air Self-Defense Force F15 fighter jets scrambled to respond. It can be seen that Japan's F15 fighter planes tried their best, but they could only look up from a low place. Even with a long lens, the photo is blurry. This is the dilemma we faced when facing American drones, and now it has appeared in Japan.
Our drone technology can reach its current situation, and its development is naturally inseparable from the day and night efforts of batches of R&D personnel and military industry workers. But it also has to be "credited" to the United States. It was precisely because the United States frequently invaded our country's southwest border with drones that it gave us drone technology and became our " transportation captain ":
In the 1960s, after the United States intervened in the Vietnam War, , our southwest border has always been shrouded in the shadow of war. In 1964, as the U.S. military began large-scale air raids in northern Vietnam, U.S. fighter planes conducted more and more cross-border provocations in our airspace.
At first, the United States used the BQM-147G/H unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Although this kind of reconnaissance aircraft is small in size and flies at a high altitude, it is slow and has poor maneuverability. It was beaten down by our People's Air Force's anti-aircraft fire, fighter jets , radar and surface to air missiles .
The American invaders who were not willing to fail, after summing up their failure experience, launched a drone that will be recorded in the history of drones: BQM-34 "Fire Bee" drone .
The United States clamored: Within five years, no one will be able to shoot it down.
The Firebee drone is smaller and more difficult to be detected by our ground radar. It has a higher altitude and faster speed: its flight altitude has been increased to 18,000 meters, and its speed has been increased to 1,176 kilometers per hour. For comparison, the maximum altitude of our main fighter aircraft J-6 at that time was 16,500 meters. The Firebee UAV can change its route as needed during flight to avoid aerial detection and strikes. It can also be equipped with electronic warfare equipment as needed to fight against incoming air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles .
Because the "Fire Bee" is painted in black camouflage and often produces a crow-like sound when flying, our Air Force officers nicknamed this troublesome and annoying drone the "Black Crow".
After the Fire Bee drone was put into use, our army deployed fighter jets and ground missile units to intercept it four times, but all ended in failure.
Later, our fighter pilots summed up the experience of failure, showed their spirit of not being afraid of sacrifice, and let the fighter planes adopt jump tactics, risking the turbulence or even disintegration of the fighter planes, seizing the shooting "window time" of about 3 seconds, and shot down the first US military "Firebee" drone.
Starting from the shooting down of the first "Fire Bee" UAV, the Chinese Air Force adopted tactics such as pursuit, interception, collision and jump. In the 1960s, our army continuously shot down 17 "Fire Bee" UAVs of the US military.
It is precisely because of the heroic and fearless fighting spirit of our fighter pilots. We have perfectly copied the first "Fire Bee" drone:
In 1968, our army used the wreckage of a downed enemy aircraft to splice and repair a complete "Fire Bee", and used it to complete a 1,000-kilometer straight flight before landing safely.
In the days of fighting against US military drones, the US military continued to improve the performance of drones and challenged my country's air defense capabilities again and again. Our military continues to carry forward the spirit of not being afraid of sacrifice and " bayonets see red " and constantly improves combat tactics, allowing US military drones to go away again and again. During those days of hard struggle, as many as 24 U.S. drones were shot down by our army. Not only did it thwart the Americans' attempt to steal our military intelligence, it also gave us precious military materials.
When China's new generation of drones flew into the sky, their performance and structure were particularly similar to those sent by the United States, and the United States suddenly realized: Feelings have become the "transportation captain" of Chinese drones technology!
