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

Deino

Deino

Lieutenant General
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Another interesting find: This is YY-20A serial number 11355 (aka no. 35) from the 4th Transport Division.

The first tanker - no. 11550 (aka no. 50) - within the 4th TD was seen only in February, so it is not unlikely that the 4th TD‘s tanker complement is altogether 16 tanker!?

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by78

by78

General
Y-20Bs again.

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Blitzo

Blitzo

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Tomboy said:
No sign of flying boom :c
Click to expand...

It's a Y-20B MRTT in tanker configuration, and as we can see its landing gear housing is round rather than angled like YY-20A.

Which is to say, technically these images aren't showing us anything new. We've seen Y-20B MRTTs in tanker configurations before.


Whether we will one day see a "YY-20B" with a refuelling boom is a whole other question and at this stage is yet to be considered as on the cards, imo. Putting it another way, a refuelling boom isn't something we should view as "confirmed/expected" for a notional YY-20B.
 
G

GiantPanda

Junior Member
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There are many Chinese aircraft with a refueling probe. There are none with a refueling receptacle.

There are no rumors of any aircraft being built or re-built with a receptacle. Not even among larger H-6 or Y-9 special mission variants.

So a prototype YY-20B with a boom needs to have something built to receive its fuel. We see no signs.
 
Tomboy

Tomboy

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GiantPanda said:
There are many Chinese aircraft with a refueling probe. There are none with a refueling receptacle.

There are no rumors of any aircraft being built or re-built with a receptacle. Not even among larger H-6 or Y-9 special mission variants.

So a prototype YY-20B with a boom needs to have something built to receive its fuel. We see no signs.
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PLAAF currently do not operate any strategic assets that will benefit from flying boom hence no reason to retrofit. The point of flying boom lies with H-20 and stragetic transports not any of the current aircraft.
 
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