China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

asif iqbal said:

usually we see mock-ups, models and pictures of aircraft at air shows and exhibitions etc but why has there been nothing on Y-20? we dont even know what its going to look like? sometimes i wonder even if its exists!

Y-9 was shown years ago we always knew of its existance but Y-20?

neverthless if it is anything like the above then its very nice, i wonder what the max. payload will be, i guess it can lift a modern Chinese MBT, so ~55+ tons

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China doesn't show its future operational equipment at airshows. Y9 showed up because it was originally market as the civilian transport Y8F600 to bypass ITAR and get Canadian engines and American propellers. You don't see J20's model showing up at Zhuhai in 2010 do you? Plus we have seen part of Y20's model (nose) already.

asif iqbal said:

usually we see mock-ups, models and pictures of aircraft at air shows and exhibitions etc but why has there been nothing on Y-20? we dont even know what its going to look like? sometimes i wonder even if its exists!

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On the contrary we've known china has had a large transport going for years now, and we saw models of it years ago too.

from ages ago:


A slightly more recent picture (two years?)



And no, usually we don't see mock ups, models and pictures of important aircraft at airshows and exhibitions -- it is the exception for important planes to be displayed. How many J-20 models have we seen before its flight, hell how many have we seen even now, nearly two years after? How many models of J-10 were present before its first flight, or J-16, J-15, H-6K, Y-8MPA...?

Most important planes are never mentioned at air shows unless they want to get attention for export. But sometimes we get a blurry pic of a wind tunnel test rig or a model at some person's desk of an important plane.

I don't know where mash-up gets its info but says people who work on the Y-20 have seen these CGs and say it's pretty much on the mark except for the color. I assume they're talking about the metallic grey/silver.

I didn't mean the double/triple flaps system. That is to be expected from a new geneeration transport. I was asking about the longitudinal placement of flaps on the trailing edge. There is a flap, then a considerable gap, then another flap. Both c17, a400m and il76 basically have that same area as one really long flap.

Totoro said:

I didn't mean the double/triple flaps system. That is to be expected from a new geneeration transport. I was asking about the longitudinal placement of flaps on the trailing edge. There is a flap, then a considerable gap, then another flap. Both c17, a400m and il76 basically have that same area as one really long flap.

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Yes, those flaps on Y-20 are called triple slotted flaps. See my reply #751.

¦^��: Re: China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

Engineer said:

Yes, those flaps on Y-20 are called triple slotted flaps. See my reply #751.

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I think he means why the Y-20 has 2 flaps with a gap in between while the C-17 and A400M has one flap that continues along the whole length of the wing leaving no gap in between.

Re: ¦^��: Re: China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

jobjed said:

I think he means why the Y-20 has 2 flaps with a gap in between while the C-17 and A400M has one flap that continues along the whole length of the wing leaving no gap in between.

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Oh I don't know, but my guess is they needed a place for the high speed aileron. For those who don't know, high speed aileron is the aileron on the inner wing, while low speed aileron is the flap-like object on the outer-most wing.

By the way, C-17 has two flaps per wing if you look closely at the image you have posted.

you mean to say that the gap between two flaps is actually another control surface, the high speed aileron? Aren't those used mostly on airliners? I don't see them on c17, a400, il76 and other cargo planes...

Yes, all those planes actually have two part flaps, but they are still mostly gapless and there don't seem to be a high speed aileron. Why would y20 move away from that? do they intend to operate it at mach 0.85? Usually cargo planes operate at lower speeds. As far as i understand, having a flap system of as biggest length as possible is always benefitial.

Totoro said:

you mean to say that the gap between two flaps is actually another control surface, the high speed aileron? Aren't those used mostly on airliners? I don't see them on c17, a400, il76 and other cargo planes...

Yes, all those planes actually have two part flaps, but they are still mostly gapless and there don't seem to be a high speed aileron. Why would y20 move away from that? do they intend to operate it at mach 0.85? Usually cargo planes operate at lower speeds. As far as i understand, having a flap system of as biggest length as possible is always benefitial.

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because At higher speed (some times as low as 250 kt +) the wing's flexibility effects mostly took away outboard main aileron's rolling power. depends on how flexible your wing is.

you don't need high roll power anyways at higher speeds anyways, but don't want to kill lift and increase drag with roll-spoilers.

so one usually have a mid-span ailerons on big airliners and transport. as they have big and flexible wings.

Those ailerons should also droop at with flaps to form a continuous flap line to increase flap effectiveness.

I would not read too much into that CGs details.