FH-97A

China's entry in the loyal-wingman race — a stealthy, jet-powered uncrewed combat aircraft built to fly alongside crewed fighters such as the J-20 as a sensor, shooter, decoy and weapons carrier. It closely echoes America's XQ-58 Valkyrie; how far it has actually progressed past the mockup-and-model stage is the genuinely open question.

Overview

The FH-97A (Feihong-97A) is a Chinese "collaborative combat aircraft" (CCA), or loyal-wingman drone, developed by Aerospace Times Feihong Technology Corp, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). It is the air-combat sibling of the ground-attack FH-97, and is intended to operate as an uncrewed teammate for crewed fighters — extending their sensors, carrying extra weapons, acting as a decoy or jammer, and adding mass to a strike package. Visually it strongly resembles the US XQ-58 Valkyrie. It is China's most-publicized contribution to the global CCA race, but its status is best described as developmental: much of what is known comes from airshow displays, scale models and parade imagery rather than a confirmed flight-test program, and Chinese-media descriptions of it as "combat-ready" are not matched by any official PLA service announcement.

Development

The FH-97 first appeared at the Airshow China (Zhuhai) exhibition in 2021 as a concept — and was widely suspected at the time to be a non-flying mockup, its shape closely echoing the US XQ-58 Valkyrie. An air-to-air-oriented variant, the FH-97A, was unveiled in 2022, and later scale models showed revised features such as side-mounted intakes and a chin-mounted electro-optical targeting sensor. In August 2025, leaked photographs from rehearsals for China's 3 September 2025 Victory Day parade appeared to show an FH-97-class drone, prompting the South China Morning Post to ask whether China was about to field the world's first combat-ready loyal wingman; the parade did display new collaborative-combat drones, some resembling the US YFQ-42A. Despite this, no official first-flight or service-entry date for the FH-97A has been confirmed in open sources, and the program should be read as prototype-stage.

🔒 The rest of the FH-97A file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Stop here and you miss the part that actually matters: how it performs and where it falls short, its combat record, how it stacks up head-to-head against its real counterparts, the complete specifications table, and our analysts’ procurement, supplier and assessment notes. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →