China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
Does Y-8, Y-9 and Y-20 have mid-air refueling capabilities? It would be nice to have some pictures.
None that we know of , the only big plane that PLAAF operates that has air refueling capability is the updated H6
by78
General
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Makes me wonder why didn't the designers of Y-9 and Y-20 implement built-in refueling probes to those planes in the first place. They are essential aircraft components for undertaking longer endurance operations, i.e. AWACS, ELINT, maritime patrol, ASW etc - Which are important for China in not just for large-scale hypothetical wars in the future, but also useful to spread her military prowess and influence across the Western Pacific in the coming future.KJ-500A is also capable of in-flight refueling.
WRT to the above, how many refueling tankers does China posses at present?
What I found indicates 3 Il-78s bought from Russia, 21+ H-6Us and 5+ YY-20s. That would sum up to a meager 29+ refueling tankers in total across the PLA, which is woefully inadequate for a hypothetical war scenario in the Western Pacific or over the Himalayas, although the figure may require updating.
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pulse assembling line and automated assembly technology ..
KJ-500 is Y-9 (aka Y-8X) which is a Y-8. So in case of this class of aircraft, PLA has done what you expected.
In case of Y-20 based AWACS (if it happens), I doubt that you need refueling. The aircraft is so large that it can take enough fuel to fly longer time than its crew can coup before it runs out of fuel.