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

Tomboy said:

If that's the case then China will have more Strategic airlift than the US in a few very short years, if Scramble.nl is to be believed there are currently 102 Y-20(With quite possibly even more currently awaiting delivery parked at the factory) of all variants active including aerial refueling variants. If production is truly 50-70 airframes per year then the number of Y-20s will easily surpass the 222 C-17 that the US has active. This could mean quite a significant boost for PLA strategic deployment.

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Tomboy said:

Speaking of which is there any news on the next generation tactical transport? Since it seems that the Y-9 still lags behind C-130s in both range/payload and numbers.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

TL; DR - The Y-20 and C-17 cannot be compared as it is.

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zyklon said:

It's also known as a corkscrew landing.

Supposedly first pioneered in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. The Soviets reportedly employed it at times as well following their 1979 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Widely used from 2003 until 2011 in Iraq as any reasonable person would imagine. Probably a technique still employed by some USG and contractor birds flying into Kurdistan and Syria these days.

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Corkscrew Landing​

• Purpose: This maneuver is primarily used to avoid enemy fire and reduce the aircraft's exposure to threats.
• Procedure: The aircraft descends in a tight, spiraling pattern, resembling a corkscrew. This rapid descent helps in keeping the aircraft's speed high and making it difficult for enemies to predict its path.
• Usage: Commonly used in high-threat environments or areas with potential anti-aircraft artillery.

Afghanistan-Style Landing​

• Purpose: Similar to corkscrew landing, this technique is used to minimize the risk from enemy fire during landing.
• Procedure: The aircraft performs a steep and rapid descent from high altitude to the landing zone. Instead of a spiraling pattern, it may involve a more straightforward steep dive, followed by a rapid leveling out just before landing.
• Usage: This method was popularized during operations in Afghanistan, where the terrain and threat environment necessitated quick, steep landings to avoid potential hostile fire.

Iron Man said:

Maybe not directly, but the C-17 production rate never rose above 16 aircraft per year, but you are positing 3-4x higher production rate for the Y-20 just because China does not have a Boeing 707 or 767 equivalent? That doesn't sound quite right.

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lcloo said:

This post is just for clarification only as it is deemed off topic and I will not continue hereafter.

There is a difference between a corkscrew landing and an Afghanistan-style landing.

Corkscrew Landing​

• Purpose: This maneuver is primarily used to avoid enemy fire and reduce the aircraft's exposure to threats.
• Procedure: The aircraft descends in a tight, spiraling pattern, resembling a corkscrew. This rapid descent helps in keeping the aircraft's speed high and making it difficult for enemies to predict its path.
• Usage: Commonly used in high-threat environments or areas with potential anti-aircraft artillery.

Afghanistan-Style Landing​

• Purpose: Similar to corkscrew landing, this technique is used to minimize the risk from enemy fire during landing.
• Procedure: The aircraft performs a steep and rapid descent from high altitude to the landing zone. Instead of a spiraling pattern, it may involve a more straightforward steep dive, followed by a rapid leveling out just before landing.
• Usage: This method was popularized during operations in Afghanistan, where the terrain and threat environment necessitated quick, steep landings to avoid potential hostile fire.

Both techniques aim to minimize the time the aircraft spends in vulnerable airspace during descent and landing, but they differ in their execution and specific maneuvers.

- Copliot

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

…

As for whether it is viable for Xi'an AC to produce 50-70x Y-20B platforms per year - As previously mentioned, that's just a theoretical upper limit bet of my own. Technically, a scaled-up annual production rate of 30-40x (or at most 50x) Y-20B platforms would be more realistic.

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Deino said:

As a wish maybe, but these numbers don‘t fit what we have seen so far on deliveries.

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Abstract: The refueling device is one of the important development directions of the air tanker. The force sensor of the boom nozzle is important device for the automatic load alleviation system to eliminate the boom load and realize the closed-loop control. However, at present, there is no such device in China to meet the actual need. The overall design and research of the force sensor for the boom nozzle is carried out to solve the problems of the isolation of the circuit from the fuel channels, electromagnetic shielding, and the crosstalk of pitch and roll measurement. The elastic body is designed as a tubular structure, and the reasonable strain-sensitive position is determined. Under the premise of small outline dimensions, consistence of the inner diameter of the elastic body with that of the telescoping boom and the nozzle is achieved to ensure the optimal design of the refueling system structure and improve the measurement accuracy. Through the design, analysis and test verification of the output sensitivity etc., the safe, reliable and accurate measurement of the boom load is realized, which can provide support for the development of the refueling device.

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