Overview
- The 11th Academy of CASC confirmed the CH-7’s recent maiden flight from northwest China, with official images and video showing taxi, takeoff, flight, and landing at Pucheng Airport.
- Developers said the sortie validated autonomous taxiing, takeoff and landing, attitude control, and trajectory tracking, with results matching design models.
- Follow-on trials will broaden the flight envelope and verify mission payloads as the aircraft is positioned for high-altitude, long-endurance ISR in contested airspace.
- State descriptions emphasize a tailless flying-wing design with stealth treatments, an upper intake, and a semi-concealed exhaust, while test imagery shows no external stores and no confirmed internal weapons.
- Analysts note earlier unofficial video of a configuration with canted vertical fins, prompting questions about removable assemblies or multiple prototypes that remain unresolved.