Any news on Chinese AWACS fleet?

So far, picture evidence has only confirmed two, based at Dachang naval air base near Shanghai. The other skymasters could be
A. dissected by chinese scientists to develop china's own produce china's own airborne/surface survailance radar. This is highly likely, given the PLA's past of taking foreing technology to make its own
B. On a new y-8 testbed in a secret location in China
C. used as spares, but i dont see the point. The skymaster was sold to china under civilian name to help in smuggling. No one objected. under this guise, china could easily order more, or an even better varient.

KYli said:

I thought there are 6-8 Y-8J that were purchased from Britain, do you have an exact numbers.

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Yes that's the ordered count, but we cannot be sure that plaaf will actually build that many Y-8Js. Nobody knows exactly how many of each type of these AWACS/surveillence aircraft is actually in operation.

Y-8J's AEW capability is far inferior to that of KJ-2000. I'm not sure if KJ-2000 can do surface search like the MESA radar, but one of the other Y-8 like battlefield surveillence should be able to.

Y-8J isn't really an AWACS, it is a maritime survaillence aircraft, as it has no real command and control capabilities.

King_Comm said:

Y-8J isn't really an AWACS, it is a maritime survaillence aircraft, as it has no real command and control capabilities.

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that's why we call it an AEW, but yes, you are right. It's more important function is maritime surveillence.

new Y-8 AWACS (no, its not balance beam)