China’s communist regime intends to create a large military aircraft capable of operating close to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, launching missiles and transporting unmanned fighter jets, according to Chinese state media outlets at the end of January.
According to international news outlets, citing information from Chinese state media, the project – called Luanniao – envisages a triangular aerial platform, with dimensions greater than those of any existing military aircraft, designed to carry up to 88 unmanned fighters of the Xuan Nu model, which would have stealth capabilities and could launch hypersonic missiles.
The aircraft is part of the so-called Nantianmen Project (“Southern Heavenly Gate”), a broader program aimed at expanding China’s air and space capabilities. The development would be under the responsibility of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a state-owned aerospace conglomerate. The communist regime claims that Luanniao could become operational within 20 to 30 years.
Conceptual images about the project, which are being circulated on social media, show the aircraft. The aircraft resembles ships from the franchise Star Wars.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraphdefense analyst Peter Layton, a research associate at the Griffith Asia Institute – which conducts security research in the Asia-Pacific, said that the technology needed to keep an aircraft of this size operating at the edge of the atmosphere simply does not currently exist. According to him, the project would require “enormous amounts of fuel” and a propulsion system that is still far from being developed.
Layton recalled that ads of this type tend to have a strong political and symbolic component. According to the expert, advertisements for futuristic weapons are used by the Chinese regime to “inspire the domestic public” and project abroad the image that Beijing is at the forefront of military innovation.
