China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Yeah even ARJ-21 has lots of imported components, don't think it's a viable opinion

However C-919 is not the only aircraft in the pipeline a larger C-929 and even larger C-939 are in development and also further own the line the CS-2000 aircraft, if they can indigenous some of the technology's like the engines then it might become useful to convert these for AWACS duties freeing up the Y-20 to carry out what it was designed for, heavy lift
 

Schumacher

Senior Member
C919 may not be big enough to be a good awacs that PLA wants but if they really want to they can stick local engines like WS20 or CJ1000 after 2020 on it and avionics too. It may still not be 100% local but I don't see any other major obstacles if China want to do it.
Operational efficiency may suffer a bit but that's not as critical as commercial airlines operation with razor thin margin.
 

MwRYum

Major
Dont expect that, not if C919 is to have any kind of competiveness. Foreign components will have to be imported. But thats OT

That's why I said that'd be an "if", maybe next time I should reinforce it with bold and italic. Still, Y-20 serving as anything other than transport isn't that good an idea, but when you got no other suitable airframe, well...
 

i.e.

Senior Member
C919 may not be big enough to be a good awacs that PLA wants but if they really want to they can stick local engines like WS20 or CJ1000 after 2020 on it and avionics too. It may still not be 100% local but I don't see any other major obstacles if China want to do it.
Operational efficiency may suffer a bit but that's not as critical as commercial airlines operation with razor thin margin.

C919 is too small to be an effective AWACS or Tanker.

a sensor craft or ASW-MPA may be. definitely not tanker.

The lower gross weight version of wide body in C929 ( 767NG class aircraft.) may be in the the right size for AWACS .
the higher gross weight versions may be suitable for a tanker. (alla 767/A330 )
 

i.e.

Senior Member
That's why I said that'd be an "if", maybe next time I should reinforce it with bold and italic. Still, Y-20 serving as anything other than transport isn't that good an idea, but when you got no other suitable airframe, well...

Y-20 is a good tanker platform. as good as KC-135 may be even better. lift more to a higher altitude. fuel efficiency be damned.
especially if they can figure out a quick conversion kit to put a Y-20 into a cargo./tanker version like Airbus MRTT. it would be really nice and flexible and easy on the total procurement budget.

after all if they decide to make a unpressurized version that hulls just fuel that would save alot of weight
 
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
wow only had it for a few weeks and already been proven as the best thing on two wings.... Lets see it get through a year before lauding the girl as perfection. She has potential no doubt but hold your horses. And for the record KC135 dates to the days of chairman Mao any modern tanker is a better performer as they are all based on lessons learned from the old bird.
 

i.e.

Senior Member
wow only had it for a few weeks and already been proven as the best thing on two wings.... Lets see it get through a year before lauding the girl as perfection. She has potential no doubt but hold your horses. And for the record KC135 dates to the days of chairman Mao any modern tanker is a better performer as they are all based on lessons learned from the old bird.

stop this non-sense.

I said better not wow the best thing ever.

right now they only have H-6 which is useful only as a top-offer for a pair of J-8 cruising in SCS.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
On the subject of Y-20 as a tanker, just want to point out that Il-78s can carry 85 tons of transferable fuel (the version that is just a modified Il-76, including the cargo door and equipment etc, and removable fuel tanks), while Il-78M can carry 106 tons of transferable fuel (this version has door, other equipment etc removed and is a dedicated tanker).

Both are built off the Il-76 of course, that has an MTOW of <200 tons.

Y-20 should be able to haul a similar load, considering its stated MTOW of >200 tons, and I'd expect a dedicated tanker version of Y-20 to carry >100 tons of fuel.

In contrast, KC-135 can carry 90 tons transferable fuel, and the future KC-46 is planned to be capable of carrying 94 tons of transferable fuel.

So really the idea that a Y-20 tanker may be marginally better than KC-135 is not really that out of the blue.


In regards to a MRTT Y-20, I think the Il-78s of the PAF are used like so.
 

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
In regards to a MRTT Y-20, I think the Il-78s of the PAF are used like so.

most of the IL-78 can be used as MRTT, the ones PAF certainly all are MRTT, the units Pakistan Air Force has is

R09-001
R10-002
R11-003
R11-004

the fuel tanks be removed in less than 60 minutes which then allows them to be used as cargo military transports, which fulfils the air forces transport needs, in peacetime PAF usually likes to have one IL-78 serial R11-003 with its fuel tanks permanently removed and used exclusively as a transport while the rest of the 3 units can interchange depending in the requirement’s, it’s a great feature, you can fulfil 2 requirement’s with essentially one aircraft

btw where did you get these figures from?
 
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