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

BoraTas said:

We may get another aircraft between the 200+ tonne Y-20 and the 75-90 tonne Y-30. I wouldn't be surprised if they would introduce another transport tier but with a MTOW of 120 to 140 tonnes. Several countries opted for that MTOW range with the C-2 and the A400M. I would say a propfan would be the ideal engine for such an aircraft. It is more appropriate for higher speeds than a turboprop but is also more fuel efficient and is more capable of short take-offs compared to a turbofan.

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So something like An-70? I think you either go Y-9 class + Y-20 class, or go directly to An-70 class + Y-20 class. 3 classes with ~15 ton payload gap each feels a bit too crowded.

So you either pick the flexibility of C-130/Y-9, or the higher capacity of An-70/A400M. I think for Y-9 class it might be filled with drones, especially since Shannxi had proposed Y-9 drone.

So maybe aim Y-30 closer to An-70 class with payload enough for 1 PCL-181 or 1 ZTQ-15, instead of 2 on Y-20.

BoraTas said:

We may get another aircraft between the 200+ tonne Y-20 and the 75-90 tonne Y-30. I wouldn't be surprised if they would introduce another transport tier but with a MTOW of 120 to 140 tonnes. Several countries opted for that MTOW range with the C-2 and the A400M. I would say a propfan would be the ideal engine for such an aircraft. It is more appropriate for higher speeds than a turboprop but is also more fuel efficient and is more capable of short take-offs compared to a turbofan.

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Don't quite see how a separate tier of airlifter that is placed in between the Y-30 and Y-20 would be necessary for the case of the PLAAF.

For the WIP Y-30, the PLAAF certainly can go with either a turboprop-powered airlifter that is situated in between the C-130J and A400M (with 4x WJ-10s or the hypothetical WJS-XXs), or a turbofan-powered airlifter that is either a counterpart to the C-390 (with 2x WS-20s) or the C-2 (with 2x 23-25 ton-force WS-XXs).

The expected payload capacity of this next-generation medium airlifter would be around 25-30 tons, with the last option potentially offering high-30s of tons of payload capacity. This means that the overlap between the Y-9 and the Y-30 in terms of payload capacity (let alone other parameters and characteristics) would be pretty huge, especially when considering the former's payload capacity of just around 20 tons.

In the meantime, we certainly won't be expecting the Y-30 to be able to carry payloads of 40+ tons either.

Hence, we might as well just delegate the Y-30 to succeed the Y-8/9 family entirely, whether the Y-30 is turbofan, turboprop or propfan-powered.

As a reference, it seems like Russia is going with their Il-276 design to replace An-12.
Twinjet transport with 20-25t payload.

IMO, from what I've heard about turboprop transports like Y-9 is proving to be insufficient might point to a turbofan or propfan equipped Y-30 with a reasonable upgrade in payload but I doubt anything in the 35+ ton region.