Role & capabilities
- Proposed multirole payload carriage
- Proposed aerial surveillance
- Primary domain
- Air
- System type
- Multirole aircraft
- Developer / manufacturer
- AVIC
- Origin / production countries
- China
- Other names
- Wing Loong III; 翼龙-3
- Variants / configurations
- Not distinguished in reviewed sources
- Operators / programme customers
- Not identified in reviewed sources
Evidence & current status
Exhibited aircraft is established. Unverified 2026 local-production claims are not entered as orders; flight acceptance and current customer status remain unresolved.
Wing Loong-3 is a larger member of AVIC's Wing Loong portfolio, publicly displayed as an aircraft at Airshow China in November 2022. The Chinese defence-industry regulator's account places it within AVIC's reconnaissance and collaborative-systems exhibition, alongside the manufacturer's broader uncrewed product range. This establishes the programme identity and public display, but does not by itself prove operational acceptance.
The platform is promoted for multiple surveillance and mission-payload roles. Its name should not be used as a blanket upgrade label for Wing Loong-1 or Wing Loong-2 fleets. Those aircraft have separate documented configurations, customers and specification histories. A scale model, a static airframe and an accepted flight configuration are also different forms of evidence.
This review found extensive repeated performance and prospective export claims, but no directly reviewed manufacturer test report or customer acceptance source that safely reconciles them. The entry therefore retains an announced-programme status and does not populate numerical rows from circular reporting. Reported future licensed production requires a dated agreement from a named contracting party before it can support an order or delivery milestone.
Sourced specifications
Figures apply to the named configuration. Maximum values are not guaranteed operating performance.
| Specification | Reported value | Context & source |
|---|---|---|
| Airframe | Large fixed-wing uncrewed aircraft publicly exhibited | Static exhibition identity; achieved flight configuration not established in this review. Source ↗ |
| Launch / recovery | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Propulsion | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Dimensions | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Mass | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Endurance | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Range | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Speed | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Altitude | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Payload | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Sensors | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
| Communications / navigation | Not established in the reviewed public sources. | Public evidence gap. No estimate or neighbouring variant value has been substituted. Source ↗ |
Documented milestones
Official exhibition account published
Government-hosted account records the first public display of Wing Loong-3 at the 2022 show.
Read the announcement ↗
Publication history
- — Added in the September 2026 global coverage review, with sources, configuration limits and explicit data gaps.
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Follow the evidence
Source types identify who makes the claim. Programme milestones and supplier statements should be read in context.