Chinese Aviation Industry

I do wonder if or when China intends to switch to high bypass turbofans entirely for all their special mission aircraft like the US instead of current turboprops. IMO they're almost at that stage now given the various high bypass turbofans design either near or in serial production

China has been developing several turboprop engines so I think this is unlikely. The US has not developed and put into service a whole new turboprop in decades.

There was a turboshaft program for the Blackhawk/Apache which got cancelled. There is the turboshaft in the CH-53K. Even that is based on a cancelled Reagan era turboprop design of decades ago.

Why is China pushing for turboprops so much when its turbofan side is practically booming currently?

Because China now has the capital to work on all these projects simultaneously.
The turboprop should have lower fuel consumption and be able to operate in harsher conditions.

For smaller transport, is there any reason to go with turbofan? Especially in the roles that they have them operating in. I don't think the special missions platform need to fly particular fast. in fact, it's probably better to fly a little slower.

tphuang said:

For smaller transport, is there any reason to go with turbofan? Especially in the roles that they have them operating in. I don't think the special missions platform need to fly particular fast. in fact, it's probably better to fly a little slower.

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I mean, many countries are switching to turbofan based ASW/MPA aircrafts so I imagine it has some value that turboprops don't. And in fact, to me it's not a question of if China will do it but when, and I imagine the answer to that might be soon. IIRC there was a nice graphic floating around here that depicted the C919 being adapted for various special mission roles like the B737 did.

MeiouHades said:

I mean, many countries are switching to turbofan based ASW/MPA aircrafts so I imagine it has some value that turboprops don't. And in fact, to me it's not a question of if China will do it but when, and I imagine the answer to that might be soon. IIRC there was a nice graphic floating around here that depicted the C919 being adapted for various special mission roles like the B737 did.

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well, that depends on what platforms you have available. If the most obvious platform is 737, then you pretty much has to with turbofan aircraft. China has Y-9 platform, which is the most logical size for this category, so it's going with it.

Now, it is possible C919 could be adopted for special missions with PLA once it has a fully domestic supply chain, but we are not there yet. And more importantly, it's not clear me to why C919 would have better fuel economy than a next-gen turboprop aircraft that is likely to use hybrid propulsion?