China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

Jovian said:

Just curious ...

Is the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter (USAF) (roughly speaking) the counterpart to the Soviet's Il-76 instead of the C-5 Galaxy?

Jovian

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Yes, but all the Starlifters have been retired, and the C-17 is there to pick up the slack, the C-5M is a very capable airlifter, and those airframes get lots of preventive maintenance in depot. While my Dad was receiving his stem cell transplant at Wilford Hall, the C-5s were doing a little bit of everything, lots of flying, and lots going on as the heavy maint depot was in San Antonio at Kelly. I'm not up to snuff on whats up now, but the C-5 is a very specialized airplane, it compliments the C-17, and the C-130, giving the USAF lots of Airlift options, and still sometimes that's not enough????

mr.bean said:

not an expert in aircraft production but doesn't it take about 8years of continuous testing before an aircraft is finally ready for production? and the Y-20 just had it's first flight last year?? if that is the case we won't see the Y-20 in service anytime soon so they will have to do with those precious 30 IL-76's.

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For transporters it takes shorter than say fighters. For instance it took C-17 only 4 years. I expect Y-20 to be in service by 2018

Jovian said:

Just curious ...

Is the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter (USAF) (roughly speaking) the counterpart to the Soviet's Il-76 instead of the C-5 Galaxy?

Jovian

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C-17 and Il-17 and C-141 (and Y-20) are in roughly the same class. Of course C-141 is older and less capable than Il-76 which is in turn older and less capable than C-17. Y-20 sits between Il-76 and C-17 in terms of capability, in the important domains.

C-5 and An-124 are in the same class.

With AN124 before being just a little bigger then C5 but both being smaller then AN225.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

With AN124 before being just a little bigger then C5 but both being smaller then AN225.

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Which is a monster.

asif iqbal said:

C17 Globemaster and Y-20 are big but has anyone seen a C-17 standing next to a the C-5 Supergalaxy it's huge

C-5 can lift two battle ready MBT

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I wonder why China was never interested in the AN-124.

xiabonan said:

Which is a monster.

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seriously, I was amazed at Gamera vs AN225.

kwaigonegin said:

I wonder why China was never interested in the AN-124.

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What would have been the purpose? Heavy army gear stays within the country. It's much better to spend the money on railways to distribute that gear and use the railways to grow the economy.
Russia also had little use for them for external transport but its East-West extent is so much larger that developing the aircraft did make sense.

kwaigonegin said:

I wonder why China was never interested in the AN-124.

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Maintenance and fuel cost I guest. I've heard it's very noisy as well.

The 3d Plane of Y-20

A.Man said:

The 3d Plane of Y-20

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How do we know that this is the 3rd prototype? the 2nd one only flew in december.