SF currently operates 95 aircraft and more than 1760,000 vehicles, the largest air and road fleets in Asia.
However, SF Express is not satisfied with this, and has invested heavily in drone companies, requiring SF to build two drones, one with a range of thousands of kilometers and a load of tons across most of China, and one with a range of more than ten kilometers and a load of several kilograms.
In 2016, after ten years of hard work, SF Express successfully developed the "Twin-tailed Scorpion" cargo logistics drone.
The "twin-tailed scorpion" cargo drone has a wingspan of 20 meters, a fuselage length of 10 meters, a maximum flight time of 35 hours, a maximum ceiling of 6,000 meters, a maximum endurance of 3,000 kilometers, and a maximum load of 12 tons, is a very good long-endurance, high-altitude, high-load unmanned transport aircraft.
This drone also has one of the biggest advantages, that is, it is cheap, and the cost is only 2 million!
In 2017, in order to promote its own drone express delivery business, SF Express took the initiative to undertake the task of transporting military materials during military exercises.
It is precisely because of this display that this high-altitude cargo drone developed by SF Express has been favored by the military.
The maximum flight time is 35 hours, and the maximum load is 15 tons, using a ceiling of 10,000 meters, a range of more than 3,000 kilometers!
What is this concept?If you hang the cargo hold, it is an unmanned cargo plane, and if you hang a bomb, it is an unmanned bomber!
The military felt that this drone was too advanced, so it did not approve it for civilian use, and directly changed it to be used as a military drone.
At the beginning, the development direction of the twin-tailed scorpion UAV was the air base station, which is a "large-scale high-altitude network-wide emergency communication UAV platform", which is used to provide emergency communication network for the earthquake area in the disaster area.
Later, the development direction of the twin-tailed scorpion became a drone attack platform that could launch missiles.
In June 2023, the domestic "Twin-tailed Scorpion" UAV was tested with live ammunition.
In the face of the scrapped vehicle of the physical target, the "twin-tailed scorpion" drone transmits the image back to the commander through the data link.
The commander pressed the launch button, and the missile hit accurately.
The twin-tailed scorpion UAV, which has been modified by the military, has a range of 7,000 kilometers, and if airborne missiles are added, its maximum attack range can reach 8,000 kilometers.
A long-range ballistic missile with a range of more than 8,000 kilometers is called an intercontinental missile, and an intercontinental ballistic missile, including the warhead vehicle (vehicle body) and other supporting costs, is about 2 billion yuan, and the cost of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile is at least several hundred million yuan.
The attack range of the twin-tailed scorpion has also reached 8000 kilometers, and its ** is in several million yuan, although this drone does not fly as fast as an intercontinental missile, but it is cheap!
Launch 500 twin-tailed scorpion drones at a time, fly to the target with missiles, can you intercept them?I'm afraid that the missiles used to intercept them will cost millions of dollars each!
Fight consumption, fight production capacity, China, as an industrial power, who is afraid?
If they are not intercepted, once 500 twin-tailed scorpions with missiles or aerial bombs fly into the enemy's airspace, the destructive effect they cause may be even more terrifying than a dozen nuclear bombs!
In the end, SF Express still obtained a drone logistics license, which can produce Ark drones and use drones to build urban logistics networks, but it is impossible for the twin-tailed scorpion to be a big killer.
By the way, the Ark UAV parameters:
The maximum load is 10 kg, the maximum range is 20 km, and the flight speed is 14 meters per second