China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
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In fact I‘m a bit surprised, since it appears as if XAC has changed the design of the rear section of the sponsons back to the original Y-20A design.
Maybe it is an early frame that was reengined?
Also, the centerline station is missing! But does this hint more towards this being an original converted Y-20A prototype or does the YY-20B will get rid of the centerline station and all Y-20B will be in fact multirole-tanker/transporter with only two wing-stations?
Or perhaps a boom at centreline?
Some suspect the latter to be the case, i.e. something akin to the A330 MRTT, though I'm unsure about that.
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We had rumours a while back that Y-20B (that is to say, the normal standard transport Y-20B) may have the internal plumbing to accommodate air refueling pods on the wings as standard.
Which is to say -- that all Y-20Bs produced may have the ability to do the air to air refueling mission from wing refueling pods, and the refueling pods would only be installed on an as needed basis.
Presumably it can also accommodate an internal fuel cell in the cargo hold to expand fuel capacity but even if it doesn't have that, the Y-20B itself has pretty large internal volume for fuel.
The closest equivalent to it in role would be A-400M which as we all know can carry air refueling pods on the wings as well.
Frankly this is something I've suggested a number of times over the years -- i.e. that it makes sense to make all Y-20Bs be able to operate as tankers by installing air refueling pods, as it means the fleet size of aerial tankers massively increases in potential due to the expected large procurement scale of Y-20B to begin with.
How many exactly does China need? The US has 279 C-17s and that's with global commitments in mind. Granted China has a large need for transport aircraft since SCS and far inland bases are more accessible via air transport, but is more than 150-200 really needed?
Add the several hundred KC10s and KC135s and now KC46s to that total.
Oh, and ~50 C5B.
I don't have a specific number in mind but 150-200 to me meets the threshold of "large procurement scale".