Man that looks great. I have a thing for high wing planes. Pity there aren't many in operation
China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
The official media ChinaMil.com just posted this article titled: "China's Y-20 strategic transport aircraft gets key indigenous engine"
Source:
Here are some extracts:
"Earlier this month, the Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Company Ltd under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the maker of the Y-20, released a photo that showed a turbofan engine with a high bypass ratio that had never been seen before, Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine reported on Saturday.
This unidentified engine is very likely China's domestically developed WS-20, and if this speculation is true, it is the first time the WS-20 has made a public appearance in an official media source, the magazine said.
...
A Y-20 pilot said earlier this year on CCTV that the Y-20 will have variants like the Y-20 aerial tanker and Y-20 aerial early warning aircraft."
Source:
Here are some extracts:
"Earlier this month, the Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Company Ltd under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the maker of the Y-20, released a photo that showed a turbofan engine with a high bypass ratio that had never been seen before, Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine reported on Saturday.
This unidentified engine is very likely China's domestically developed WS-20, and if this speculation is true, it is the first time the WS-20 has made a public appearance in an official media source, the magazine said.
...
A Y-20 pilot said earlier this year on CCTV that the Y-20 will have variants like the Y-20 aerial tanker and Y-20 aerial early warning aircraft."
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This is the same Global Times report that someone posted earlier.
This report does not say that a Y-20 with WS-20 has taken the first flight. It merely says that WS-20 has made first public appearance based on some other media reports or sources.
On the other hand, this flurry of news/rumors about WS-20 are not based on that doctored picture that everyone has been excited about. In fact, that picture was posted by someone a while back, long before the current news/rumor cycle about WS-20. Someone recycled the picture to jump into the fray.
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Yes, but what is significant is that the official media posted that article as a top story, "acknowledging" the WS-20 and tanker variants of Y-20.
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Creating a bigger plane also comes with costs. There is a reason why AFAIK, the Il-76MF has never been put to production, despite first flight in 1995.
Why do you keep stating that this "Y-20B" has flown despite no evidence of that? if one day it appears, we´ll know. Until then, its just speculation.
Was the J-20 just speculation until it flew
Lets not change the topic -- you asked for why Y-20 should be longer, I gave you an answer.
Whether the costs are worth the benefits is an entirely different matter.
Russia ultimately didn't pursue the Il-76MF, but Russia's own aerospace industry post Cold War and up to now is also not exactly rolling in the funding it could wish it had.
However, various other nations have certainly pursued such modifications, the most notable proliferative examples of lengthened cargo aircraft that come to mind being:
C-130J-30, a C-130J variant with a 4.6m extended fuselage and procured in quite meaningful numbers
C-141B, a C-141 variant with a 7.1m extended fuselage that involved conversion of nearly the existing fleet of pre-existing C-141As.
So yes, there's definitely a reasonable rationale for why extending the length of a transport aircraft, and the installation of more powerful WS-20 engines on Y-20 and the extension of Y-20's length are not mutually exclusive and we know is something that was or even is being actively considered in the form of the Y-20F100.
Whether they end up pursuing it and whether the Y-20B has such a modification is an entirely different story.
Because it is coming from some people whose opinions that I trust and defer to and because the news itself is consistent with what we've been expecting for the last few years.
A big part of PLA watching is recognizing that there are people whose opinions on things have more gravity than your own, and being willing to defer to their statements and claims when it is consistent with the preceding overarching consensus and expectations.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Was the J-20 just speculation until it flew
well, thats your opinion ... and doesn't mean true
... thats the beauty of this forum, a lot of respected news or rumours. If you don't like it until you see them, perhaps this forum is not ideal for you