Over the last two decades unmanned aerial vehicles have become increasingly embedded in militaries around the world china has started commercial production of the CH-5 Rainbow drone touted to be a rival to the us expensive drone the MQ-9 Reaper which could attack targets on the ground the duties of these systems range from strikes against insurgents in conflict zones to surveillance gathering in support of multilateral disaster relief operations so which of these two drones is better.the general atomics MQ-9 reaper also called the predator B is an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations developed by general atomics aeronautical systems primarily for the united states air force the CASC CH-5 rainbow on the other hand is the latest UCAV of the rainbow series developed by the china academy of aerospace aerodynamics of china aerospace science and technology corporation it is said that the CH-5 rainbow can carry munitions of various types which more or less follows the American MQ-9 reaper UCAV in both its form and function being the most advanced drone of china currently in service.
Performance and Functions:
firstly let's look into the unit cost the u.s reaper calls for 15.9 million dollars which makes it the world's most expensive drone the CH-5 rainbow cost about 8 million us dollars which comes in at half of the price to that of the us reaper both size and form the CH-5 is almost identical to the reaper both ucav,s feature a v-tail and ventral fin and both measure the same length width wingspan and even height now there's no doubt that the weight of the reaper and the rainbow are nearly the same but in the case of maximum takeoff weight the reaper is 1.5 times more compared to its rival one main important characteristics here is the payload the reaper can carry 1700 kilograms of payload of which 1400 kilograms is external payload while 360 kilograms is internal payload the chinese drone can carry less payload compared to the reaper the reaper is powered with a single honeywell TPE-33110 turboprop which include digital electronic engine control honeywell is a significant content provider for the MQ-9 reaper their solutions are proven to be highly reliable and capable providing the power to protect and the technology to perform in any airspace environment the engine power is 900 horsepower with this power it gives good performance numbers which you will be seeing in the next round the CH-5 rainbow on the other hand is equipped with an unidentified turbocharged piston engine with less than half the horsepower which is 330 horsepower wang song an associate professor with the school of aeronautic science and engineering at china's baehang university admitted that CH-5 rainbow had a weakness compared to its american counterparts the u.s drone allows to stay above the reach of most ground fire while this chinese drone cannot the limited ceiling of the rainbow is a byproduct of its relatively weak engine according to mr wong who noted that china still left behind the west in aircraft engine technology now coming to its performance numbers the maximum speed of the u.s reaper is nearly three times that of china's rainbow now given china still limited command and control capabilities. the CH-5 actual range is likely around 10,000 kilometers as for the service ceiling the MQ-9 reaper can fly up to an altitude of 15,420 meters which is more than six kilometers high compared to its rival the CH-5 limited ceiling makes it more vulnerable to anti-aircraft.
Weaponry:
sources has regularly cited that the chinese uav's endurance is at around 60 hours endurance of the u.s reaper is 30 hours when conducting ISR missions which decreases to 23 hours. if it is carrying a full weapons load so which of these two drones has a better armament and weaponry the MQ-9 reaper carries a broader range of ordnance and can be equipped with up to four AGM-114 hellfire missiles plus two GPU-12 paveway two laser-guided bombs are two 500 pound GBU-38 joint direct attack munitions on the reaper hellfire missiles are carried on stations 2 and 6 while stations 3 and 5 can only carry bombs and stations 2 and 6 can carry either bombs or launchers with missiles overall the CH-5 rainbow can carry up to 16 air-to-ground weapons including lan gen 7 or the blue aero 7 laser guided air-to-surface missiles TG-100 laser GPS guided bombs AR-1 SA-l missiles and AR-2 SA-l guided anti-armor missiles coming now to avionics the reaper is equipped with the raytheon a-n-d-a-s-1 multi-spectral targeting system which has a suite of visual sensors for targeting the MTSA provides real-time imagery selectable between infrared and day tv as well as laser designation capability the MTSB integrates an infrared sensor and image intensified camera a laser designator and a laser illuminator also the reaper features the lynx multimode radar from general atomics and multi-mode maritime surveillance radar a second electronic support and measure systems and a communications relay as for the CH-5 rainbow it is quite difficult to say what type of avionics and radars it is equipped as the chinese have not disclosed the information to the world but just a little is known here the CH-5 features a range of electronic warfare systems that are comparable to other ucav,s including infrared electro-optic and thermal imaging capabilities for air-to-ground intelligence gathering the ch-5 can also identify targets through walls furthering its capacity to carry out missions in urban settings the pilots first conducted combat missions in iraq and afghanistan in the summer of 2007. on 20th October 2007, the air force times reported an MQ-9 had achieved its first kill successfully firing a hellfire missile against Afghanistan insurgents in the drawn region of the mountainous Uruzgan province apart from these countries it has only seen operation in Ethiopia Libya mali and Iraq even the killing of Iranian general Kasim soleimani was killed by an MQ-9 reaper drone while there are no reports of the Chinese military carrying out drone strikes Beijing has utilized drones in a number of non-combat scenarios following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake china used drones to support various humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations
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