Jane's ran a story this morning claiming a Digital Globe satellite snapped images on June 7th and June 10th a possible new unmanned aerial vehicle was spotted at Malan air base in western China. The link has since gone 404.
That said, I went and did a little asking in other circles about the image.
I was provided with:
The unknown aircraft is superficially similar to the Dark Sword UAV that caused some hullabaloo in June. Interestingly, the Dark Sword photo popped up on June 5th. The photo above was supposed to be taken by Digital Globe on June 7th and seen again on June 10th. The time is interesting, but may just be a coincidence.
The primary difference between this aircraft and the Dark Sword is the wings look...wrong. Everything looks lined up here and without the angled out wings for the Dark Sword. OTOH, that could be an artifact for of the resolution of the satellite. I'm not convinced, to be honest.
Jane's does note, in the now nuked article, there are two known high speed UAVs in development by China. The preview does not state what they are or if the Dark Sword is one of them. It should be noted, the shape of this aircraft is quite similar to the various images Lockheed put out of the proposed SR-72. A purported sighting of a flying SR-72 UAV was seen recently in Texas, fwiw.
The aircraft to the right of the triangular bird is a Soaring Dragon, a joint or tandem wing UAV. That aircraft is 47 ft long. That would give our new unknown a length of between 30 to 40 ft (9m to 12m). The wingspan only looks to be between 10 to 15 ft (3m to 4.5m) at most.
It should be noted this COULD be a hoax. Whether a prank or misinformation by the PLAAF on anyone looking at Malan AB. Or it could be some other sort of hoax. Healthy skepticism should be kept.
However, it should be noted that just because its Chinese, doesn't mean its not possible. Indeed, the laws of physics don't care what color your flag happens to be. They work the same for everyone.
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