China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft - esp. Y-20/YY-20

[Deino]

Huitong has updated his site with a new Y-20A carrying a serial number that "could" be 41xxx!

We have been fooled so often before & especially since the image is so much blurry and the flag looks also clearly psed I'm actually not really sure whether the picture is even a photo!

 

[Deino]

Huitong has updated his site with a new Y-20A carrying a serial number that "could" be 41xxx!

We have been fooled so often before & especially since the image is so much blurry and the flag looks also clearly psed I'm actually not really sure whether the picture is even a photo!

View attachment 137170

@huitong could you please explain a bit more this image? What’s the source and if there’s any more information about where it was taken … ?

 

[huitong]

The photo was taken a few days ago at the city of Shenyang. The original post was quickly removed. Lets wait and see more and clearer pictures.

 

[Deino]

Thanks a lot

 

[Deino]

PLAAF YY-20A 20547
Source: JETPHOTOS
Photographer: Un1que Date: 2024.10.27



@huitong

 

[Deino]

Another set of YY-20A images and again my question, since I think we still had no conclusive answer on this issue: Are no. 20846 and 20546 different aircraft or is 20546 the renumbered 20846?

Since if not renumbered, this would mean that there are indeed two separate serial number batches of 2054x & 2084x numbers and in fact it would raise the number of built YY-20A tankers dramatically?

 

[tphuang]

Another set of YY-20A images and again my question, since I think we still had no conclusive answer on this issue: Are no. 20846 and 20546 different aircraft or is 20546 the renumbered 20846?

Since if not renumbered, this would mean that there are indeed two separate serial number batches of 2054x & 2084x numbers and in fact it would raise the number of built YY-20A tankers dramatically?

View attachment 137887View attachment 137888View attachment 137889View attachment 137890

I would think this invalidates the theory that 2084x tankers got re-numbered?
It seems like the longer term goal here is to have 20541 to 20949. We might be getting there next year. Producing 15-20 Y-20 tanker variants per year shouldn't be that difficult.

 

[Deino]

I would think this invalidates the theory that 2084x tankers got re-numbered?
It seems like the longer term goal here is to have 20541 to 20949. We might be getting there next year. Producing 15-20 Y-20 tanker variants per year shouldn't be that difficult.

Why would this invalidate the "theory that 2084x tankers got re-numbered"?

My problem is, that if they are not renumbered then we would have almost 40 tanker - IMO a bit too many even more so in one regiment (the 38th AR) - now and why then adding them in such a non-pattern system with some numbers left out and the starting again with 2054x numbers? By the way, with production being changed to the Y-20B/YY-20B, are there already enough old ones built to fill all missing numbers?

If you take all individual numbers known so far, then there are almost 20 available, some with 2054x/2064x and some with 2084x/2094x numbers but overall a number quite realistic to a standard regiment and according to the production numbers "estimated".
If they are indeed all individual numbers - and assuming in the end there will be all missing ones filled in - then we would have a monster-regiment with numbered from 20541 to at least 20947 (as the highest number known) = 47+ tanker!

In the end with the additional almost 60 regular transports, I think these are a few too many? Or am I wrong?

 

[tphuang]

Why would this invalidate the "theory that 2084x tankers got re-numbered"?

My problem is, that if they are not renumbered then we would have almost 40 tanker - IMO a bit too many even more so in one regiment (the 38th AR) - now and why then adding them in such a non-pattern system with some numbers left out and the starting again with 2054x numbers? By the way, with production being changed to the Y-20B/YY-20B, are there already enough old ones built to fill all missing numbers?

If you take all individual numbers known so far, then there are almost 20 available, some with 2054x/2064x and some with 2084x/2094x numbers but overall a number quite realistic to a standard regiment and according to the production numbers "estimated".
If they are indeed all individual numbers - and assuming in the end there will be all missing ones filled in - then we would have a monster-regiment with numbered from 20541 to at least 20947 (as the highest number known) = 47+ tanker!

In the end with the additional almost 60 regular transports, I think these are a few too many? Or am I wrong?

are those photos you posted all for recent times? If they are, then my question is why would they re-number 2084x to 2054x and then add 2084x again?

The demand in China for Y-20 series is probably 300-400 over the life time. Why would 50 tankers be too many? I would think they need 150 tankers at least. Maybe 200.

 

[Deino]

are those photos you posted all for recent times? If they are, then my question is why would they re-number 2084x to 2054x and then add 2084x again?

The demand in China for Y-20 series is probably 300-400 over the life time. Why would 50 tankers be too many? I would think they need 150 tankers at least. Maybe 200.

In fact I had no time to check, when they were photographed and even more if the dates are correct is another question.
Concerning the overall number of Y/YY-20 I agree, but this bigger number - at least IMO - does not fit to what we've seen over the months at XAC and it makes organisational no sense. Even more since there are still several numbers missing to that assumed mega-unit where would they come from, when production already changed to the Y-20B?

By the way ... a great image of four PLAAF YY-20A + one UAE C-17A + one An-124. (Image via @酈先森 from Weibo)