19 hours ago
Massive Chinese Stealth Flying Wing Emerges At Secretive Base
In an exclusive development regarding China's rapidly accelerating next-generation air combat programs, we have just gotten our first glimpse of what could be the long-awaited H-20 stealth bomber, or, arguably more likely, a very large and low-observable flying-wing long-endurance unmanned aircraft.
The image of the previously unseen aircraft sitting outside of an already intriguing hangar complex at an airfield notorious for advanced air combat programs comes to us from the Planet Labs archive. The image was taken on May 14th, 2025, and just appeared in the database.
The image shows China's secretive test base near Malan in Xinjiang province, which is known to be on the leading edge of the country's unmanned aircraft development efforts. Specifically, the craft was parked outside of a sprawling new facility that was built very recently to the east of the base, connected to it by a very long taxiway leading to a security gate.
Construction of the installation began just over two years ago. The high-security site is very densely populated with hangars of various sizes. These include estimated (based on early construction satellite images) 70-meter, 50-meter, 20-meter, and 15-meter bays. The craft in question is sitting outside one of the largest bays. The low-slung large hangars are reminiscent of the shelters for U.S. B-2 bombers at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri or infrastructure we see at the U.S. Air Force's Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, associated with flying-wing aircraft. The smaller bays at Malan are a bit more of a puzzle.
It wasn't previously apparent what this facility was intended to do, but now it seems clearer that it may be a testing base for China's next generation air combat ecosystem, which would include aircraft of multiple sizes — from the H-20, to large stealthy flying wing drones, the the tri-engined J-36, to the J-XDS fighter, and of course, smaller tactical drones. The U.S. Air Force is developing its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) and Long-Range Strike (LRS) family of systems in a similar manner. This would perfectly explain the puzzling variety of bay sizes for such a compact base and its high-security nature. Still, this is just a guess based on the very small amount of visual evidence available.
The newly emerged aircraft itself appears impressive. It is a large flying wing that has a wingspan of roughly 52 meters, or about 170 feet. The B-2 Spirit is 172 feet wide, for comparison, and the B-21 is going to be a bit smaller. Maybe the best explanation is that this is a very large, high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) stealthy drone — similar to the supposed U.S. RQ-180 — but this would be the biggest we have ever seen. China is developing a number of flying-wing type designs of various sizes, including large HALE drones, but nothing at this scale, at least that we know about. It is also worth mentioning that the aircraft seen in the new imagery has a close resemblance to one that was spotted passing over the Philippines in 2021.
Alternatively, its size would fit more logically into the profile of the H-20 — China's first and so far unseen stealth bomber. As such, this could be our first look at that aircraft, ever.
The planform is similar to that of the B-21, with the wingtips appearing to be clipped at an angle, similar to it and the B-2. While there is a white area that appears to give the left wing a sharper tip, that is not the case as proven by the shadows below it. The sweep looks less than a B-2 or B-21, pointing to endurance at altitude as a significant design driver. There also appears to be a center barrel or domed section. This is customary on flying-wing designs. It can house the cockpit and additional internal volume for a manned aircraft or even the intake and the engines for an unmanned ones.
No cockpit is visible, nor features like inlets, but the resolution really limits making out those kinds of details.
Finally, and most interestingly, there appears to be a small set of angled vertical tails, at least as indicated by the shadows and what seem like vertical extensions on its upper management. This is not a conclusive feature. It could be something else causing this optical property, but it's worth noting that small vertical tails on large flying wing concepts are not unheard of. It is very challenging to impart stability of this kind of large flying-wing design, and small tails would greatly assist in this. You can read all about this here.
What is critical to state here is that the emergence of this aircraft is very unlikely to be an accident. China is fully aware that commercial satellites are passing over at any given time, and they could keep hidden any program they wanted. Mistakes could happen, but, taken at face value, it's far more likely China was ready for this aircraft to be seen by satellites. It's also possible that they could use exactly this knowledge for information warfare purposes, rolling out a mockup or decoy in order to confuse foreign intelligence units, which are watching this facility far more closely and with much better resolution than what a publicly accessible commercial satellite service can provide. These factors are always worth remembering. Still, the fact is that this facility also looks built for such a machine, at least in part.
So there you have it. This could be our first look at China's stealth bomber or a very long-reaching HALE drone — either of which could be highly problematic when it comes to enabling targeting of American ships and installation deep in the Pacific, for instance. This is the third major revelation we have had just in the last seven months when it comes to China's rapidly evolving next-generation air combat capabilities, and it probably won't be the last for 2025.
Author's note: Edited to include wing sweep features.
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