Labelled as Y-20 in the captioning.
China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
A Y-20B MRTT in flight. Posted by Cute Orca on Weibo.
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Very nice, I think these are the best Y-20B shots we've gotten so far.
Nice pictures.
Prototype 7812, which fills the gap among the existing 781X prototypes that we've had pictures of (7810, 7811, 7813).
Also, I think this picture pretty clearly shows there is no rear central fuselage refuelling drogue like on YY-20A.
I think the designation for this thing is probably best given as "Y-20B" where it is widely acknowledged that Y-20B at baseline is able to operate as a transport or a tanker dependent on whether it has air refuelling pods installed or not.
The "YY-20B" designation otoh may be best kept unattributed, as we cannot yet confirm if they may choose to develop a more dedicated tanker variant based off Y-20B (with more dedicated tanker capabilities possibly being enhanced permanent internal cargo hold fuel bladders, a central fuselage refuelling drogue like YY-20A, or possibly even a boom refuelling option on the central fuselage if the PLA chooses to go that route for certain future aircraft).
Much thanks. Post corrected.
Oh no worries, it wasn't intended as a correction to your post, more as a general thinking out loud wrt how to logically designate this aircraft as it enters service.
There's a very real possibility, that the PLA goes the other way and designates "Y-20B" as the aircraft without refuelling pods, and "YY-20B" when refuelling pods are installed on the wings.
In which case maybe the most accurate all encompassing designation would be "Y/Y-20B" or even "Y/YY-20B," both of which look ridiculous lol
I was under the impression that the Y-20's has a similar cargo bay size to that of the Il-76, at least based on some pictures where proportions relative to people seem pretty close
Are there images of a Type 99 being loaded/unloaded in a Y-20?. I don't remember seeing one or it was specified somewhere that the Y-20 was required to carry a Type 99 type tank?.
Genuine question, I missed that.
Genuine question, I missed that.
