China’s Giant Jiutian Drone Mothership Debuts With Internal Bay for One Hundred Mini UAVs.

China’s Jiutian heavy unmanned aircraft completed its first operational mission over Shaanxi Province, introducing what analysts describe as the world’s largest aerial drone carrier. The platform signals a major step in China’s push for swarm-enabled strike concepts that could complicate U.S. and allied air defense planning across the Indo-Pacific.

China’s new Jiutian heavy UAV has moved from concept to operational reality, according to reporting from a Chinese news agency. The jet-powered drone completed its first mission on December 11 over Shaanxi Province, marking the public debut of an aircraft that Chinese engineers frame as an airborne carrier for swarming munitions. Early imagery and program briefs describe a platform able to deploy more than one hundred small drones from an internal bay while also carrying a full load of precision weapons, a combination that defense analysts say could give the PLA Air Force a flexible tool for long-range strike and electronic attack.
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China's Jiutian heavy UAV acts as an airborne drone carrier, launching swarms of small drones while carrying a large precision weapons load for long-range strike and reconnaissance missions (Picture source: CCTV).

Jiutian is a high altitude, long endurance heavy UAV with a wingspan of about 25 meters and a length of 16.35 meters, powered by a single WS-9 Qinling turbofan derived from the Spey family. Its maximum takeoff weight is assessed at 16 tons, of which roughly 6 tons can be payload, putting it in the same weight class as the U.S. RQ-4 Global Hawk but with a much more strike-oriented configuration. Performance figures released through state media indicate a 7,000-kilometer ferry range, 12-hour endurance, and an operating ceiling near 15,000 meters, enough to loiter well outside most point air defense envelopes while still supporting operations across the First Island Chain.

The airframe shows a thick, almost attack aircraft-like planform with an A-10 style straight wing, H tail, and a large dorsal engine intake that leaves the fuselage free for stores and sensor bays. An electro-optical turret on the nose provides targeting and ISR, while eight underwing hardpoints can accept 1,000-kilogram-class guided bombs, anti-ship and air-to-ground missiles, and active radar or infrared air-to-air weapons. Inside the fuselage sits the key innovation: a modular heterogeneous honeycomb or isomerism hive mission bay that can be fitted with racks for scores of loitering munitions or small UAVs configured for reconnaissance, jamming, or one-way attack.

Development of Jiutian reflects China’s broader military-civil fusion strategy. The concept was led by Shaanxi Unmanned Technology with design work by AVIC’s First Aircraft Institute and support from Northwestern Polytechnical University, while manufacturing is handled by Xi’an Chida Aircraft Parts, a state-controlled firm that already supplies major PLA combat aircraft. Bloomberg reporting on the maiden flight attributes the program to the same industrial team and confirms the aircraft’s role as a drone mothership able to host multiple missiles and swarming munitions.

Jiutian gives the PLA Air Force a flexible node for swarm-centric concepts of operations that Chinese theorists have been promoting for several years. At altitude, the drone can act as a long-range sensor and communications relay, cueing other unmanned systems or directing massed loitering munitions against radars, air bases, or naval task groups. In a Taiwan contingency, a formation of Jiutians orbiting over mainland territory could disgorge waves of expendable drones that cross the strait at multiple altitudes, saturating Taiwanese and U.S. partnered air defenses with decoys, jammers, and precision warheads before manned strike aircraft or ballistic missiles exploit the gaps.

Beyond the strait, the platform can support maritime strike packages in the South and East China Seas, acting as a loyal wingman arsenal aircraft for J-16 or J-20 fighters or as an autonomous patrol asset over sea lanes where risk to manned crews is politically sensitive. Its dual-use branding allows Beijing to argue civilian benefits such as disaster relief, remote deliveries, and emergency communications, but Chinese state media are explicit that military requirements come first, and that the same modular bay can shift from cargo pallets to swarming munitions in roughly two hours.

Compared with foreign competitors, Jiutian stands out as a purpose-built unmanned mothership rather than an adaptation of an existing transport. The U.S. DARPA Gremlins program, for example, used C-130S as airborne launch and recovery platforms for reusable X-61 drones, while the LongShot concept explores fighter-launched unmanned vehicles that carry their own air-to-air missiles. Those efforts emphasize standoff carriage and midair recovery, whereas Jiutian focuses on one-way mass employment of relatively cheap drones combined with heavyweight strike weapons on a single unmanned chassis. In size, it rivals Global Hawk but trades endurance and stealth for payload and modularity, and it complements, rather than replaces, China’s naval Type 076 UAV carrier, extending the swarm concept from sea to air.

The platform is not without weaknesses. Its large radar cross section and reliance on satellite and datalink control make it vulnerable to long-range fighters, area air defenses, and electronic warfare once it operates inside a highly contested battlespace, a concern already raised by foreign analysts and even some Chinese commentary. Yet if protected by friendly air superiority and used from sanctuary airspace, Jiutian could become a key enabler of layered PLA strike architecture, generating cheap mass at range and complicating U.S. and allied air and missile defense planning across the Indo-Pacific.