I did not question the fact it flew, but that does not make the image real he posted.
China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
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I did not question the fact it flew, but that does not make the image real he posted.
Lol, You misunderstood. I had nothing to do with your previous post. It was independent question because the drive reported it was running on home made engines.
Chinese military is always incredibly prudent to release pictures... maybe it's ''testing before showing'' doctrine ?
You know that's what's unique about Chinese military watching: frustrating and fascinating at once.
Frustrating because we're constantly in the dark and have to guess. Why can't they just release an official statement and an authentic picture of Y-20B with WS-20 immediately now that they have made their first flight? What's the big deal? It's a freaking transporter! Better yet, why can't they regularly update us on the progress they're making on WS-20 and other platforms and systems? You know what's best? It'll be helpful if they can publish a 30-year warship build plan for example, much like the US publishing their 30-year plan now and then (although I admit the US keeps changing it every few years). If the 30-year plan is implausible, a 10-year plan will do. At a minimum, it will quench our thirst for information, if not that of China's potential adversaries. Additionally, the transparency will also enhance China's image as a responsible stakeholder on the world stage.
Fascinating because we're constant in the dark and have to resort to all sorts of creativity and tools. It tests our resourcefulness and analytical power and, indeed, patience. What's amazing is that Chinese military is not exactly a black-box - it's often a grey-box with delayed exposure and pronouncements, thus giving us some somewhat delayed feedback on our analysis and analytical prowess, whether confirming or contradicting. Furthermore, the Chinese military is moving so fast and in so many fronts that as soon as one mystery is solved, another is bound to bubble up, thus keeping us hooked and addicted even. For the military geeks inside us, for example, it's fascinating to watch how a blue-water, world-class navy is built from scratch step-by-step literally in (half of) our life time, with different components, subsystems and platforms put together to form a coherent system of systems. We argue/debate/speculate/ as if we were the architects of this buildout. Sure, the US military is larger and more powerful at present, but it's also more established and evolved at a much slower incremental speed.
I know things are moving a bit slowly lately, many of us are getting a bit bored. But we're in a transition period now from the end of the 13th Five Year Plan to the beginning of 14th Five Year Plan, hopefully they will pick up the pace soon.
Actually posted almost 4 weeks ago.
