China's indigenous bomber program

Well actually the Soviets did use Tu-22s for carpet bombing during the Afghan war, mostly in the Soviet attack in the Banjar Valley. But I personally think that high level carpet bombing from heavy bombers is a World War 2 tactic. Modern air defences would detect the bombers easily, and they would be easy prey for SAMs and AAA (Thats why the bombing raids on Germany by the USAF in that war suffered heavy casualties). Nowadays, the techinque of low-level bombing is most preferable, since you can advoid enmey air defences quite easily that way. But I think heavy bombers still have a place there. They could also be useful as missile carriers - the B-1B is useful for launching tomahawks outside enemy air defence - I imagine the H-6 could launch a similar attack with the KD-63 - I can imagine that being the most popular Chinese tactic if the PLAAF ever undertakes a U.S. - style precision bombing campaign. Maybe the new Chinese bomber will be able to launch more KD-63s than the H-6.

Could this be a suggestion of a feasible Chinese replacement for the H-6 ???



It’s one of several studies from Boeing during the early days of the ATB-project, which led to the B-2 and I was quite surprised how simple and conventional this study was.

Source:

Any ideas or comments ! With the technology capbilities of today this should be possible ....

Cheers, Deino

Deino said:

Could this be a suggestion of a feasible Chinese replacement for the H-6 ???

[qimg]http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/6568/atbconceptasah6replacementuv9.jpg[/qimg]

It’s one of several studies from Boeing during the early days of the ATB-project, which led to the B-2 and I was quite surprised how simple and conventional this study was.

Source:

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Any ideas or comments ! With the technology capbilities of today this should be possible ....

Cheers, Deino

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The above picture, which shows clear commonality with the Boeing 737, reminds us that a 'modern' bomber with similar speed/range performance to the B-52/Bear/Badger would benefit from modern airliner design. In fact a Boeing or Airbus with bomb bays in place of the cargo holds would be in almost every respect better than the equivilent B-52 or Badger. Quite why China is still building Badgers is beyond me, honestly.

It would make good logistics too, but China doesn't make commerial airliners and definitely not engines...... Even if you use the Y-8 as a start, stretch it, etc, you still need to find engines, and I doubt those will come through.
They'd work well as LACM launchers if they exist though. (Anything closer to a protected target would need either fighter-bombers or stealth bombers.)

sumdud said:

It would make good logistics too, but China doesn't make commerial airliners and definitely not engines...... Even if you use the Y-8 as a start, stretch it, etc, you still need to find engines, and I doubt those will come through.
They'd work well as LACM launchers if they exist though. (Anything closer to a protected target would need either fighter-bombers or stealth bombers.)

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China can indeed make engines and pretty well. The problem is with China's quility of their mateirials used to make a engine which comes to the reason why engines are exported from Russia. China makes commercial liners, plenty actually, but they aint good at it. The commercial liners built are probbably the the size of a A320! I think china would be focusing on somethin, more militariestic. More faster and large too.

renmin said:

China can indeed make engines and pretty well. The problem is with China's quility of their mateirials used to make a engine which comes to the reason why engines are exported from Russia. China makes commercial liners, plenty actually, but they aint good at it. The commercial liners built are probbably the the size of a A320! I think china would be focusing on somethin, more militariestic. More faster and large too.

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China would be in joy if they can make something to the size of A-320. Their current capability lies in the EMB-145 (45-50 seats) and also MA-60 (50-60 seats). Their current major project is ARJ-90 and that only setas about 90.

China doesn't make any commercial high-bypass engines for commercial airliners, only fighter jet engines, and those don't fit the role. China is trying to make commercial grade turbofans, yes, but we haven't seen or heard about them much.
The joint Airbus cooperation from the 1990s had failed pretty early.
The ARJ-21 is still in progress.
The airliners that China make, like the Y-12 and MA-60 (Civil-Y-7) use turbofan engines.
The cloest to a civil-turbofan that China has now I think are the RR Speys that originally were suppose to replace the WP-8s on the H-6s, but ended up instead on the JH-7A.

China has EMB-145s? They bought those right?
Haven't heard of the ARJ-90.

sumdud said:

It would make good logistics too, but China doesn't make commerial airliners and definitely not engines...... Even if you use the Y-8 as a start, stretch it, etc, you still need to find engines, and I doubt those will come through.

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CAAC & SAIC was able to reverse enginner the Boeing 707 some 30 years ago as the Y-10. The prototype was powered by P&W turbofan engines, which would've been replaced by WS-8 later.

Unfortunately the project was cancelled due to economic and political reasons. More info on this wiki entry:


IMO if the PRC wanted to make commerical airlines powered by reverse-enginnered CFM56 engines today, they can do it. But it's prolly cheaper and more politically viable to import from US or France, since these are "big ticket" purchases used to improve relations.

Problem with commercial jet development is that they're usually mired in politics. Back in 1990s Taiwan's TAC was negotiating with McDonnell Douglas for MD-12, BAe for regional jet, Dassault & Fokker for another regional jet deal, Brazil's Embracer for yet another regional jet, and even Indonesia's IPTN to make the N-250 turboprop airliner... Taiwan's DPP opposed these 50-50 joint ventures as a waste of money, so in the end MD went to China and Taiwan was left making parts for Swearingen's SJ-30 corp jet.

BTW, can anyone identify this:

The PLAAF has been looking at the Tu-22 for quite some time. Russia isn't selling. An indigenous design based on the Tu-22 might work. Obviously the specifications would be a low-alittude supersonic bomber, like the B-1B and Tu-22. China could even buy an old Tu-22 from Libya for study. But an indigenous bomber project would take a long time.

what the heck are you talking about? Russians offered both Tu-22M and Tu-95 at the beginning of 2005. China has shown zero interest in it.

To sumdud, yeah, it's ARJ-21, don't know what I was thinking. As for EMB-145, they have license production and supposedly a 49% partner in the program or something like that.