Under the title “Mach 30 wind tunnel to ‘put China decades’ ahead in hypersonic race,” the South China Morning Post on May 31 reported that a leading Chinese researcher, Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Han Guilai, told an online lecture that the JF-22 wind tunnel in Beijing would be capable of simulating flights at up to 10km per second – 30 times the speed of sound. Together with an existing facility, also in Beijing, it would put China “about 20 to 30 years ahead” of the West. The existing JF-12 hypersonic wind tunnel in Beijing has about one-fifth of the power output of the new facility under construction.
The SCMP reports that the power produced by the JF-22 “will be seven times more than the Hoover Dam in the US, almost as much as Three Gorges.” The new facility will be unveiled “soon.” It will not likely run on windmills.
