China Describes Its New CH-7 Stealthy Drone As “Eyes for Other Combat Units”

China’s CH-7 Stealth Drone: Rival to America’s RQ-180?

By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior Maven

“Eyes for other combat units” were the words used by a Chinese Government-backed newspaper to describe the Concept of Operation for its emerging CH-7 stealthy reconnaissance drone, a platform the paper says will perform high-risk surveillance over dangerous enemy territory and send target data to bombers. 

The Global Times Chinese newspaper says the CH-7 evolved from earlier designs of a larger, armed platform into a smaller, lighter, stealthy reconnaissance drone intended to penetrate contested airspace and identify high-value targets for armed platforms to engage from stand-off ranges. 

What is the CH-7 Drone?

This description of the drone raises interesting tactical questions, mainly because the Chinese paper said the CH-7 will identify targets for “bombers” or “other combat units.” This would indicate that the PLA Air Force may use its bomber force as an aerial command and control node capable of receiving real-time data from forward-operating stealthy drones. As part of a description of these Concepts of Operation, the paper indicates that the bomber can attack from “stand-off” distances. 

RQ-180 computer generated image from U.S. Military video. Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot.

The Concepts of Operation and tactical questions seem significant, as the CH-7’s resemblance to stealthy US drones is recognizable and regularly discussed. The Global Times even states that its CH-7 is comparable to the US RQ-180, a mysterious Northrop Grumman-built stealthy drone reported in multiple news reports to exist.

However, the potential existence of an RQ-180 remains unconfirmed by the Pentagon, and there have not been public images released, which suggests that the air platform is secretive if it does exist.  No public images of the reported RQ-180 have been released, so it seems significant that the Chinese paper would reference the aircraft to highlight the stealth attributes of its CH-7.