Chinese Troops Deploy Unmanned Helicopters Near Border With India

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Tibet Military Command troops stationed at the border with India have deployed two locally-built unmanned helicopters designed for high-altitude combat.

The aircraft, Blowfish A2 and Ranger P2-X, were built by Zhuhai Ziyan UAV company.  They can perform strategic support, material transport, logistics support, and plateau intelligence reconnaissance and tactical strike missions, Global Times reported today.

The command also received smart weapons and customized equipment including portable oxygen generators and multi-purpose dining car from 22 domestic manufactures, a CCTV report published earlier this month, said.

The long-endurance Ranger P2-X is Ziyan's latest frontier land and maritime defense reconnaissance model. It has good maneuverability, strong wind resistance and a modular design. It can be assembled in two minutes for quick deployment. It can carry out long-endurance reconnaissance over the target in quiet state, and is suitable for extreme flight in small areas such as mountain areas.

As early as July 2018, the Ziyan series unmanned aerial system has been used for border patrol and surveillance in the plateau with an altitude of more than 3500 meters. During a test of its training mission, Parus, the small reconnaissance unmanned helicopter from Ziyan, successfully took off from an altitude of 4,000 meters and flew to an altitude of 7,000 meters.