China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
Was this also taken at Aviadarts? or is it just a cool picture of the Y-20?
I wonder why so. Perhabs its because china still doesnt feel confident enough to send y-20 abroad.
Or...perhaps they don’t have Y-20s to spare for shows?
That doesnt make sense, because they did sent an Il-76. They could have sent a Y-20 instead, if only to show it off to other militaries (and potencial future buyers) , unless the chinese air force still doesnt have sufficient confidence in Y-20 for it, IMO.
I imagine showboating a new plane isn’t on top of the PLAAF’s list of priorities, nor is attending Aviadarts the primary role the Y-20 is supposed to perform. Why should we read sending a plane to Aviadarts, or any other air show, as a reflection of confidence?
It might simply be that China does not want to export the Y-20 until it has native engines for it. Otherwise Russia might feel like they are competing with Il-76 sales and deny them D-30 engine sales. The same engine is also used in the H-6K bomber and could be used in other platforms as well since it's the largest military turbofan the Chinese currently have access to. There are rumours they can purchase Ukrainian engines like the D-18T but if those engines were available why didn't they use them in the Y-20?