The Chinese company Tengoen Technology, despite its small age, was engaged in the creation of a record drone, capable of lifting into the air 20 tons of payload. For the company, which appeared in 2016, this is an ambitious project, but its engineers are confident in their own abilities and expect to cope with the task.
Today Tengoen Technology is a private company, but already having some experience in building unmanned aerial vehicles, including in the interests of the Chinese armed forces. It is this technological reserve that is planned to be used in the development of the cargo vehicle.
At present, only some details of a promising project are known. In particular, the drone created to provide the necessary lifting force will receive a wingspan of 43 meters. To reduce the mass of the structure, the device body is made of light hydrocarbon fiber. Given the high flight mass in the laden state, eight engines will be installed on the drone at once.
Based on the available presentational development images, the machine will have four pairs of jet engines mounted on pylons under the wings, will receive double tail and three hull nacelles at once to distribute the load more evenly throughout the lethal apparatus, taking into account the need to reduce its own weight. The central of them is allocated under the cargo compartment, while the extreme ones are used to accommodate components and assemblies of the aircraft itself.
According to the calculations of developers with full load, such a device will be able to cover a distance of up to 7 thousand kilometers. In this case, the flights of the first test specimens should begin no later than 2020. If there are no serious problems with the tests, it may take several years for Chinese specialists to debug the machine.
Young, but ambitious company is in good standing with Chinese buyers. It produces a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles for the civilian market, and also builds samples in the interests of law enforcement agencies and the armed forces. In the latter case, she is offered models that carry full-fledged rocket armament.
Today, Tengoen Technology has a large number of UAV models, the largest of which has a payload of 2.7 tons, and is called TB-001 Scorpion.
It is known that the plans of the engineers of the Chinese company include the creation of an unmanned helicopter intended for the organization of passenger traffic, but this project is only at the initial stage of development, therefore, no details and details of its implementation to date are reported.
If the Chinese specialists succeed in achieving the goal, and create a drone capable of lifting up to 20 tons of payload into the air, this will be a serious success. Such a machine will be able to perform a wide range of combat and transport tasks, lift heavy equipment, or be used to deliver cargo over long distances.
