Tag Archives: yunshu

Robot Wars: China’s self-flying Antonov Maize, a modernized Cold War Aircraft

In April 2022, CCTV-10 aired a two part Innovation and Progress report, showing the development of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) cargo plane, Feihong FH-98.  Part 1:

Part 2:

“The exercise met our expected objective. It is very significant for our unmanned logistics chain in future warfare.”-Bi Guangyuan, executive director in charge of recent testing, June 2019

In June 2019, China’s National Defense University of People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, put to the final tests a new robot cargo aircraft.

Photo via CGTN, 23JUN2019.

The aircraft is unmistakable, it is the only type of its kind, a bi-plane cargo/agricultural aircraft, designed and built in the Soviet Union just after The Great Patriotic War (World War Two).  In 1957, during the non-declared Cold War, Communist China got a license to build the Antonov An-2 Maize (NATO reporting name Colt) as the Yunshu (Yunshuji, later becoming Shifei) Y-5, but this modern version of the Maize has no crew.  The new crewless version of the Maize is called Feihong-98 (FH-98).

In Zhangye, northwestern Gansu Province, the robot An-2/FH-98 had to complete three final tests; fast load 5-hundred kilograms of cargo, a short range airdrop mission, and a long range air drop mission. The tests were declared successful, and China’s PLA now has a viable robot cargo aircraft.

Another CCTV report:

CGTN video report of first test of Feihong-98 (FH-98) cargo UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), October 2018:

Xinhua/New China version of the report:

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