China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
Using tu16 measurements and that last image i get 45 meters in length and 47 meter wingspan. Give or take a meter or two.
Using the pic of the plane on runway itself plus GE estimation of runway width and length of touch down markers on the runway (69 and 25,8 meters, respectively) I get 48 meter wingspan and 46 meters in length.
Width of fuselage is hard to asses from these angles but looking at similar images of other planes, it does seem to be around 5-6 meters.
To summarize, it seems to me the whole plane was really sized for the available thrust bracket given by d30kp engines. even the new engines don't have to be hugely more powerful. it seems more logical to me the new engines would give perhaps several percent more power while giving a big improvement in fuel efficiency and durability.
It's going to be a very fine plane. I don't see any use for 70+ ton cargo planes in china right now. (in 40 years, thats a different story) Even if this has cargo area just 20% bigger than an70 and carries 50 tons it is going to be a big player. I forsee many export sales for this as well, once it gets domestic engines.
Using the pic of the plane on runway itself plus GE estimation of runway width and length of touch down markers on the runway (69 and 25,8 meters, respectively) I get 48 meter wingspan and 46 meters in length.
Width of fuselage is hard to asses from these angles but looking at similar images of other planes, it does seem to be around 5-6 meters.
To summarize, it seems to me the whole plane was really sized for the available thrust bracket given by d30kp engines. even the new engines don't have to be hugely more powerful. it seems more logical to me the new engines would give perhaps several percent more power while giving a big improvement in fuel efficiency and durability.
It's going to be a very fine plane. I don't see any use for 70+ ton cargo planes in china right now. (in 40 years, thats a different story) Even if this has cargo area just 20% bigger than an70 and carries 50 tons it is going to be a big player. I forsee many export sales for this as well, once it gets domestic engines.
airsuperiority
Captain
... at least surely nonger than 23m !!!
thank god we never see him here. i'll put a gun to my mouth if he start comparing hindenburg to this
Wouldn't be surprised if the same observers who said that the J-20 is over 23m long is gonna start rambling about how the Y-20 is shorter than 33 meters.
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Yes no doubt, I can't see China design a military cargo which cannot transport the latest MBT for its army
Whatever the weight is for the MBT will be a play load Y-20 can lift
Whatever the weight is for the MBT will be a play load Y-20 can lift
At the moment this thing is about the size of your standard Il-76, but I think with WS-20 engines we can see a stretched version like Il-76MF and give the much vaunted 65 ton payload that is as of yet unreachable.
Fortunately, Y-20 seems to have a significantly wider cargo hold/hull than Il-76 and is more akin to C-17 in that regard. If Y-20 can be stretched from its current 46.5m to an Il-76MF/C-17 class ~53m, PLA will get a very good strategic transporter that can compete with Il-476 in future, and potentially take a good portion of the market too, considering the next largest transporter would be the C-17 and that's going out of production soon if no one else orders it.
But for the foreseeable future, if XAC can only mass produce a Y-20 with baseline Il-76 performance, that would still be a massive leap for the PLA's airlift capacity. I'm just glad they had the foresight to make the hull very wide.
Fortunately, Y-20 seems to have a significantly wider cargo hold/hull than Il-76 and is more akin to C-17 in that regard. If Y-20 can be stretched from its current 46.5m to an Il-76MF/C-17 class ~53m, PLA will get a very good strategic transporter that can compete with Il-476 in future, and potentially take a good portion of the market too, considering the next largest transporter would be the C-17 and that's going out of production soon if no one else orders it.
But for the foreseeable future, if XAC can only mass produce a Y-20 with baseline Il-76 performance, that would still be a massive leap for the PLA's airlift capacity. I'm just glad they had the foresight to make the hull very wide.