As with the first version, the Chang Feng 2 began as a private venture by the developer itself, Sanjiang Space Estate. The Chang Feng 2 obtained Chinese governmental support faster than the first version due to strong support by the military command. On February 24, 1995, the first engine test of CF-2 ended in failure, and it was only after extensive modification when success was finally reached, when the first flight test of an unarmed missile was successfully completed in late August 1996. On October 6, 1997, the second stage of flight test begun and the result was very successful at the beginning when the first missile was fired. However, more than a dozen days later, the second test flight resulted in failure. It would take another half a year before all the problems were stamped out and CF-2 was finally ready for the service, which it eventually did in the late spring or early summer of 1998, and the leaders of CSSG were personally interviewed and praised by Liu Huaqing, the chairman of the Central Military Commission (People's Republic of China) and Chinese defense minister Chi Haotian for the success of CF-2. According to the April 2000 issue of Chinese magazine Aerospace World (世界航空航天博览) quoting from test results, CF-2 is considered by the Chinese military as one of the most successful of its kind in Chinese inventory, including having the best relative cost, shortest developmental time, most successful upgrade within the past decade, and was accurate enough to be used in surgical strikes. The guidance system of CF-2 was used to upgrade that of CF-1 so that CF-1 could achieve the same level of accuracy, a top priority of the follow-up improvement program for CF-1. However, CF series of land attack cruise missiles suffer from their inherit problem of being too large and too heavy that they can only be deployed via land-based platforms, and thus do not appear to have more places in the Chinese military in the future in comparison to later Chinese land attack cruise missiles such as HN series and DH-10. Specifications (estimated): Range: ≈ 800 km Cruising altitude: 40 to 100 meter Speed: high subsonic Warhead: nuclear (10 kt TNT equivalent) or conventional Propulsion: turbojet CEP: better than 20 meter Status: production completed, supplemented and maybe superseded by HN series Service: 1998 to present User China: People's Liberation Army Ground Force References Changfeng &