Chinese Aviation Industry

I think that 1000 number is either misspoken, misquoted or misprinted. There is no way they would need a thousand of these planes. The most common number that I have heard is 400.

All new pictures for the J-10, J-11, J-16, J-20 and the J-31 seems to have dried up. What is going on ?

Franklin said:

I think that 1000 number is either misspoken, misquoted or misprinted. There is no way they would need a thousand of these planes. The most common number that I have heard is 400.

All new pictures for the J-10, J-11, J-16, J-20 and the J-31 seems to have dried up. What is going on ?

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Really? USAF has close to a thousand transports alone, and when you add support aircraft like tankers and AWACS, then the amount definitely exceed a thousand. Within the production life time of Y-20, China's military spending is going to exceed US by a large margin. And Chinese global interests demands power projection capability -- even if it only use them to evacuate its citizens from dangerous situation. What made you think China's requirement is so limited, or it can only afford to little? In fact, due to China's lack of oversea bases, the requirement for tankers may even exceed that of US.

nemo said:

Really? USAF has close to a thousand transports alone, and when you add support aircraft like tankers and AWACS, then the amount definitely exceed a thousand. Within the production life time of Y-20, China's military spending is going to exceed US by a large margin. And Chinese global interests demands power projection capability -- even if it only use them to evacuate its citizens from dangerous situation. What made you think China's requirement is so limited, or it can only afford to little? In fact, due to China's lack of oversea bases, the requirement for tankers may even exceed that of US.

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US "needs" to support a thousand, or there about, it seems they haven't counted them recently, overseas bases all over the World. China will want to avoid such an establishment.

nemo said:

Really? USAF has close to a thousand transports alone, and when you add support aircraft like tankers and AWACS, then the amount definitely exceed a thousand. Within the production life time of Y-20, China's military spending is going to exceed US by a large margin. And Chinese global interests demands power projection capability -- even if it only use them to evacuate its citizens from dangerous situation. What made you think China's requirement is so limited, or it can only afford to little? In fact, due to China's lack of oversea bases, the requirement for tankers may even exceed that of US.

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I don't think China want to emulate the US as a "global police" at least in the next 30 years. China would be more than happy to have very strong power projection within the country and region ... and limited power projection globally ... so 1,000 is way too many and not wise decision as I said before, newer and much better model would emerge within 15-20 years time

antiterror13 said:

I don't think China want to emulate the US as a "global police" at least in the next 30 years. China would be more than happy to have very strong power projection within the country and region ... and limited power projection globally ... so 1,000 is way too many and not wise decision as I said before, newer and much better model would emerge within 15-20 years time

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Not global police, but protecting interest. China need power projection capability into Africa -- what happens if someone tries to nationalize Chinese commercial interest and hold Chinese citizens hostage? An overt ability to rapidly power project will at least give pause to the plan -- think deterrence rather than intervention. And further distance you need to project, more aircraft you need, since you can only carry faction of the load for the max range and you need tanker supports.

Maybe they will get to 1000 if they keep producing it for 40 years. I tend to think that they should develop a newer generation transport platform before then.

Y20 airframes produced today may very well be serving within PLAAF in 2055. 40 years really isn't that much for a large airlifter, especially one designed after 1960s. Actually, out of large airlifters (30 tons payload or more), only c141 lasted less - some 30 years. C5, Il76, An124 and An22 have all crossed the 40 year treshold. And c17 is virtually guaranteed to cross it as well.
Even c141 might have lasted longer if it wasn't designed as a very narrow plane, for a less broad list of missions. They tried to remedy it with remanufacturing them as longer planes to get more cargo area but in the end it wasn't worth it.

We will probably see a smaller cargo plane in the next decade or so, we might even see a larger cargo plane some day - serving alongside y20, but i'd be VERY surprised if there's a same class replacement for y20 for the next 35-40 years.

tphuang said:

Maybe they will get to 1000 if they keep producing it for 40 years. I tend to think that they should develop a newer generation transport platform before then.

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And yet Il-76 and C-130 are still being produced after all these years. In the context of China's ongoing growth I can see Y-20 and future derivatives being produced for a long, long time to come.

EDIT: Totoro said it better.

Just to clarify my previous post, when I referred to China's "ongoing growth" what I meant is that I don't think China will produce Y-20 at a high rate wrapping up after a relatively short period, largely because limited budgets and many other competing priorities won't allow for it. As such I think we will see more modest production rates stretched out over a longer period of time, and over that period budgets will continue to grow, and requirements will likely increase, further extending production into the indefinite future.

Looking at the suggested numbers, I'm curious about how the Y-20 will be produced:

Is anything known about how the production is going to be organized ?
Is there going go to be a big new factory with a production line or are they going to be built in batches ?

Is it correct that the "big planes" currently produced for the PLAAF (Y-8/Y-9, H-6) are built in relatively small batches and not in a production line ?

What do you think is a likely production rate for Y-20 once its production gets going ?