China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

nemo said:

This number WILL include variants such as tanker and AWACS, due to PLA's lack of access to other large airframes. US air fleet, if you include tankers and AWACS, does exceed a thousand.

And this number is the life time of production -- so a late Y-20 may replace an early Y-20. So the active fleet may be smaller, but do consider at the end of production life of Y-20, Chinese economy will be multiple times the size of US economy -- that implies the ability to sustain and the possible need consistent with the larger scale.

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How many years has Y-8/9 been in service with PLAAF and how many have they produced (including all the special missions variants)? Let's also include H-6 for the sake of the argument since Y-20 would also replace the tankers.

It would be not such a good thing if PLAAF is still producing Y-20s in 50 years.

tphuang said:

How many years has Y-8/9 been in service with PLAAF and how many have they produced (including all the special missions variants)? Let's also include H-6 for the sake of the argument since Y-20 would also replace the tankers.

It would be not such a good thing if PLAAF is still producing Y-20s in 50 years.

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I think the original article mentioned 1000 Y-20s produced, not necessarily for the Air Force.

I think Y-20 could see a lot of life as a civilian cargo hauler, so it may well be that Y-20 could still be produced in 50 years, but not for the Air Force but for domestic civilian companies.
When that is considered, I think the idea of 1000 Y-20s isn't so ridiculous.

Bltizo said:

I think the original article mentioned 1000 Y-20s produced, not necessarily for the Air Force.

I think Y-20 could see a lot of life as a civilian cargo hauler, so it may well be that Y-20 could still be produced in 50 years, but not for the Air Force but for domestic civilian companies.
When that is considered, I think the idea of 1000 Y-20s isn't so ridiculous.

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Well, we are coming up to a time when China should be undergoing a lot of improvements in the area of large transport as a result of all the civilian projects. I'm not sure why civilian companies would want Y-20 when it could get C919 for example

Bltizo said:

I think the original article mentioned 1000 Y-20s produced, not necessarily for the Air Force.

I think Y-20 could see a lot of life as a civilian cargo hauler, so it may well be that Y-20 could still be produced in 50 years, but not for the Air Force but for domestic civilian companies.
When that is considered, I think the idea of 1000 Y-20s isn't so ridiculous.

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tphuang said:

Well, we are coming up to a time when China should be undergoing a lot of improvements in the area of large transport as a result of all the civilian projects. I'm not sure why civilian companies would want Y-20 when it could get C919 for example

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You're right that military transport won't have a lot of potential market in the civilian sector. Civilian cargo planes and military transports have very different design philosophies, where one focuses on maximizing efficiency hauling air containers, the other focuses on transporting large and heavy equipment, minimizing the need for loading/off-loading assistance, and redundancies for harsh airport conditions. These characteristics made the military transport less cost-efficient as a commercial cargo hauler.

This is why we never see any cargo airlines using the C-17 or C-5. There are some commercial use of Il-76 and An-124/225, especially for rush delivery of heavy equipment, but the market is tiny when compared to freighters based on passenger airliner platforms.

This Image Seems Ahead of Google Earth

4 X Y-20s and IL-76 with 4 WS-20 engines

Hey, funny ... that's my image - ähhm, at least I cut it out and added the text. I think it was already posted a few pages before ...

However by now I'm no longer if these are four WS-20 or again only the engine cowlings open, since the shadow is quite narrow.



Deino

Deino said:

Funny ... it seems as if this report missed the SDF:

China needs 'more than 1,000' Xian Y-20 transport aircraft

IMO this number is far, far, far too much exaggerated !

Not even the USAF or the RuAF have such a huge fleet of transports even if You add all C-17, C-130 and C-5 in the USA or in Russia Il-78 + An-12 + An-124.

I think indeed that the PLAAF will purchase a larger number - maybe 200 - to establish a strategic lift capability and to bolster its transport fleet not only for military but also other "national" assets like emergency and disaster missions, but alone my "small" number of 200 would require about 10-12 new or transformed divisions; at all a completely new force structure.

Overall I won't be surprised if the PLAAF and other national assets would purchase between 200-300 Y-20s and maybe a few more for civil transport operators + some for export, but surely far less of these reported 1000.

Just my 2 cents,
Deino

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China needs 'more than 1,000' Xian Y-20 transport aircraft

1,000??
LOL, who is China going to conquer?

I think with that kind of number they are looking at conquering the whole world and then some!

There is a certain market for commercially operated military grade transport planes. Boeing did mull a commercial option with C17. Fact is - there was too many IL76 already in use. And there still are. As long as they're operating, no other newlybuilt plane will compete. But as they get too old and as they retire, there will indeed be a slowly opening market for such planes. So then the options will be: A400m, newlybuilt il76 and y20. (c17 should be out of production by then)

if y20 can match the pricetag of newlybuilt il76 then it may have a chance. Though, for real chance, it will have to undercut it, as most operators today already operate il76 and are familiar with it so they will still with a more known option if the price/performance is similar. A400m is pricier than the two mentioned but with less capacity so i don't think it's really a competitor.

Unlike with military cargo, floor volume isn't crucial here as such cargo is shipped by airliner planes. All these il76 that operate comercially today are used because they ship oversized cargo that can fit through a large door. Those rare cargos that don't fit into il76 are obviously so rare that those several commercial an124 can take care of them.

Deino said:

Hey, funny ... that's my image - ähhm, at least I cut it out and added the text. I think it was already posted a few pages before ...

However by now I'm no longer if these are four WS-20 or again only the engine cowlings open, since the shadow is quite narrow.

View attachment 28379

Deino

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Hard to tell. The resolution isn't that well, so I don't know, wether the shadow is so narrow, or part of the shadow is covered by the engine.

Not sure if real ??



... or was there was one again someone with too much time, an old image and his photoshop ??