Beijing’s years of investment in drones are finally starting to pay off. Here's What You Need to Remember: China's biggest shortfall is probably not a matter of hardware. It takes nearly 200 skilled pilots, maintainers and analysts to support a single sortie by a high-end UAV. China reportedly activated one of its Soar Dragon large spy drones to keep tabs on a U.S. Navy cruiser that sailed through the Taiwan Strait in late July 2019. The Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Antietam transited the Taiwan Strait on July 24, 2019 as a show of force. In addition to the Soar Eagle, Beijing sortied J-11 fighters 10 times during