China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

Michaelsinodef said:

I think they might be more interested in the materials of the airframe and the likes, rather than the engines, although it probably doesn't 'hurts' for them to also just get a look at the engines.

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But like I said, wouldn't just be easier to ask for some An-124's engines from Russia(if it hasn't been done already) and bypass the political mess that is Ukraine?

Michaelsinodef said:

Ultimately, like I said, it's likely they could gleam some 'insights' from the wreckage, which can serve as data/knowledge, which could help in the future IF they decide to make some bigger aircrafts.

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This could make more sense, but I think in this regard, Russia is also the better option. While the An-124/An-225 were designed by Antonov, they were built in Ulyanovsk and as far as I am aware, they also have the blueprints. I remember it caused a fuss a few years ago when Russia annouced it would restart the An-124 line and Ukraine got into tizzy over intellectual property rights

Russia has a limited amount of D-18T engines. Basically the ones in their own An-124s. They can service existing engines but not build new ones. That is why the An-124 production facility in Russia is basically stalled. Without Ukrainian engines Russia cannot build more An-124s.

The closest in production engine in Russia in terms of specifications to the D-18T is the military NK-32 turbofan engine as used in the Tu-160M. But production so far is limited, like half a dozen engines a year, and all is reserved for Tu-160M production and upgrades. Russia is developing the PD-35 engine for the CRAIC 929 which should have the required power level but won't be ready until later this decade. Chinese by then should have CJ-2000 engine.

I don’t think there would be anything particularly useful to gain from such a wreck. Sure it is worth looking over, but it’s a 40 year old design with 40+ year old materials and production concepts.

Y-20 is a much newer design taking advantage of newer materials and manufacturing techniques. On top of this, Antonov has always been open to cooperation with China.

sheogorath said:

This could make more sense, but I think in this regard, Russia is also the better option. While the An-124/An-225 were designed by Antonov, they were built in Ulyanovsk and as far as I am aware, they also have the blueprints. I remember it caused a fuss a few years ago when Russia annouced it would restart the An-124 line and Ukraine got into tizzy over intellectual property rights

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Reminds me of a discussion on the Flanker thread. A member was saying that Ukraine had no right to share any technical data they had on the Su-33/T-10K with China because it is the intellectual property of Russia, therefore the J-15 is “illegal”. I argued that it’s impossible to make such a clear claim on the IP because both parties were part of USSR and this was “State Property”, but in any case it is doubtful you will see any court case over this to answer the question.

supersnoop said:

I don’t think there would be anything particularly useful to gain from such a wreck. Sure it is worth looking over, but it’s a 40 year old design with 40+ year old materials and production concepts.

Y-20 is a much newer design taking advantage of newer materials and manufacturing techniques. On top of this, Antonov has always been open to cooperation with China.



Reminds me of a discussion on the Flanker thread. A member was saying that Ukraine had no right to share any technical data they had on the Su-33/T-10K with China because it is the intellectual property of Russia, therefore the J-15 is “illegal”. I argued that it’s impossible to make such a clear claim on the IP because both parties were part of USSR and this was “State Property”, but in any case it is doubtful you will see any court case over this to answer the question.

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I think Ukraine makes that argument themselves to Russia. Russia tried to buy the 96% complete Slava class off Ukraine and said they are prepared to pay 5% of the total cost of the ship for Ukraine to finish the build and hand it over, to which Ukraine said if you're the Soviet Union I won't charge you a cent over the 4%, but you're not and you are trying to buy a whole ship off me. It's going to cost you a lot more than 5%.

Michaelsinodef said:

Ofc, but we should keep an eye cuz it might be a Chinese company that want to recycle it and some insight can stoll be gleamed from it (could be useful to make an even bigger y20 like plane say).

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Given the size that recycling will likely be in chunks no bigger than Volvos and it doesn’t automatically go to China as there are a number of places such could happen. Anything salvageable will likely stay in Ukraine, anything sensitive to. Even the engines if salvageable would probably be stored in Ukraine for hopes of trying to build her sister.
Frankly if China wanted to build a C5 class lifter at this point they could. Y20 has all the “Secret sauce” it’s just a question of engines and IF they wanted to But that’s a huge IF.

Though An-125 and An224 have some uses commercially, the super outsized cargo carry is very limited in role. The majority of civilian air shipping is containerized with platforms like cheaper and more common 777-F and A350F down to 767F pretty much dominating the role. Due in no small part to the basic reality of the far more established and common support chains globally. The majority civilian outsized use it’s really competing with Boeing 747-8F or freighters and container ships which cost wise is cheaper.
So it’s a highly specialized mission One of those missions where everything has to fall into line and you absolutely need not just outsized but high mass and fast delivery. If what is being shipped is low mass but outsized then guppy birds scoop up the mission.

For military service the Starlifter class is more affordable and supportable. The handful of Galaxy and Condor in the USAF and RFAF are limited number and limited in function that a C17, Il76 or Y20 couldn’t do. Sure perhaps not 3 MBT per flight but then again the number of flights needed to drop an armored brigade would be in the dozens in either case and what value that would or could have is lost by the high profile manor of shipping that would make a landing zone an instant target to attack. C5 has a second nickname FRED F———— ridiculous Economic Disaster. An124 it fits the same. AN225 was a unique bird but more or less a relic it was only built for the Buran shuttle program. In the US for NASA they looked at a similar concept for a C5 class lifter but we had the alternative modifications to 747 as an option. The Soviets and later Antonov found an alternative use in civilian outsized cargoes but it was always just to keep the lights on.

The Talk of completing the second bird has been going on since completion of the first. Zelinsky and Ukraine want it to happen they want to rebuild they want Antonov to succeed but do they have the resources and could it actually make financial sense to pay off the investment? Or would it basically end up as Eastern Europe’s Spruce Goose?

Frankly I am of the opinion that Chinese aviation is already very ambitious in its aim in Y20, C919, C/CR929, hypothetical C939. A super bird just doesn’t seem realistic. If they need a logistics backbone then build more Y20 and Y9. A Sino AN224 is like trying to convince yourself that they need a Comac 949 build as large as A380. The actual potential market doesn’t exist and if anything is dated thinking.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Frankly I am of the opinion that Chinese aviation is already very ambitious in its aim in Y20, C919, C/CR929, hypothetical C939. A super bird just doesn’t seem realistic. If they need a logistics backbone then build more Y20 and Y9. A Sino AN224 is like trying to convince yourself that they need a Comac 949 build as large as A380. The actual potential market doesn’t exist and if anything is dated thinking.

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Oh I agree, but from chinese commentators (shilao podcast I think), they expressed that the PLA would still be interested into TRYING to get some insights into the AN225 (even if the insights aren't gonna be that incredible/revolutionary/important).

Despite the fact that they very likely won't try to build such a big airplane, and probably also unlikely for the PLA to get even something like an airplane at say about half the size of AN225 I think it was (or well half the carry weight/capacity).

At the end of the day though, it probably isn't something incredibly high on their priority list either, and we here shouldn't and doesn't really need to pay a lot of attention to it. But I suppose it would be a bit fun if we could confirm that a chinese company was able to get the opportunity to scrap it.

The An-225 is a niche aircraft design. It is a six engine aircraft. At a time the transport aircraft industry is moving towards dual engine aircraft.
A CJ-2000 engine would allow you to make a quad engine aircraft with similar power level to the six engines in the An-225.

China has had a long standing cooperation with Antonov with regards to transport aircraft design. But I doubt it would have been viable long term given the increasing US influence in Ukraine. Another aircraft which would have been useful had they ever gotten it to work, I think, would have been the An-178. I think China needs a similar dual engine aircraft to replace quad engine turboprops like Y-8 in mainline usage.

Video of the AG600

Double post. Deleted

Dropping Mountain Cat ATVs out of a Y-20.