塘鹅Yes, distributed arrays should enable a Gannet-like 21st century CV AEW aircraft. A golden opportunity for PLAN to surpass USN in carrier operations.
What is Chinese for "gannet"?
塘鹅Yes, distributed arrays should enable a Gannet-like 21st century CV AEW aircraft. A golden opportunity for PLAN to surpass USN in carrier operations.
What is Chinese for "gannet"?
Are you saying they can make bad decisions as well as good ones?
Well, everyone who knows me, knows how much I hate these IMO usually constant copy claims since copying - especially when not having the real original one at hand - is not an easy task or almost impossible, but as it seems, here I'm running out of arguments and we can indeed call it a "copy" even with certain differences on the nose, tail, radar-mount ...
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I'm saying that "the Americans are doing it therefore it must be ok" is not a particularly compelling argument, particularly when the decision was taken in close proximity to a number of other decisions that have subsequently proven to be short-sighted. It should also be noted that USN actually tried to keep the Common Support Aircraft program alive, but it was killed by Congress.
The path that USN carrier air wings took following the end of the Cold War outright eliminated the valuable capabilities provided by the S-3B Viking and ES-3A Shadow and forced Super Hornet into the tanker role that it was far from optimized for, while eventually replacing the C-2 Greyhound with the CMV-22B Osprey which, like Super Hornet in the tanker role, is both overpriced and underperforming (range, speed, payload) for the role.
It's far from evident that CSA would've worked out. Certainly cramming a bunch of disparate requirements into a common airframe bears some resemblance to ambitions for the JSF program which caused so many problems. But it is also far from evident that the route chosen was the best available to USN at the time, let alone that China should follow the same path some two decades later.
Speaking of, I think the S-3 platform could've been, perhaps could still be, a good basis for fixed-wing, carrier-borne ASW/AEW/ELINT/COD/tanker roles for the PLAN, esp. when compared to rotorcraft (and the odd J-15s doing buddy refueling) being the only means at present with which the PLAN has in its employ to fulfill those roles.I'm saying that "the Americans are doing it therefore it must be ok" is not a particularly compelling argument, particularly when the decision was taken in close proximity to a number of other decisions that have subsequently proven to be short-sighted. It should also be noted that USN actually tried to keep the Common Support Aircraft program alive, but it was killed by Congress.
The path that USN carrier air wings took following the end of the Cold War outright eliminated the valuable capabilities provided by the S-3B Viking and ES-3A Shadow and forced Super Hornet into the tanker role that it was far from optimized for, while eventually replacing the C-2 Greyhound with the CMV-22B Osprey which, like Super Hornet in the tanker role, is both overpriced and underperforming (range, speed, payload) for the role.
It's far from evident that CSA would've worked out. Certainly cramming a bunch of disparate requirements into a common airframe bears some resemblance to ambitions for the JSF program which caused so many problems. But it is also far from evident that the route chosen was the best available to USN at the time, let alone that China should follow the same path some two decades later.
Everything else at the rear is just a "slave" to the similar aerodynamic configuration of the dish, and there is only so many ways you can fit a massive dish on top of a turboprop frame. Even the Yak-44 had a passing resemblance to the E-2.
Well, I guess E-2 is not the worst prototype to choose.Sure, the basic configuration of the E-2 is a very well-adapted one for its task, yet the KJ-600 follows the template a little too closely for it to be chalked up to mere convergent evolution. Take the Yak-44 - as you say, superficially the similarities to the Hawkeye are likewise obvious, but in detail it was a far more original (and as a result in some ways more modern) design than this is.
If you choose turbofan propulsion instead of props, there are even more interesting alternatives, such as one with conformal radar arrays that Beriev patented a few years ago.
Only semi-serious…The E-2 might just be an ideal design and coming up with a better design might not have been worth the effort, especially if China already had detailed design/specifications for the E-2. So copying might just have been the best solution for China at the time. The US isn't in a rush to replace the E-2, so they obviously view the design as having a future.
Speaking of, I think the S-3 platform could've been, perhaps could still be, a good basis for fixed-wing, carrier-borne ASW/AEW/ELINT/COD/tanker roles for the PLAN, esp. when compared to rotorcraft (and the odd J-15s doing buddy refueling) being the only means at present with which the PLAN has in its employ to fulfill those roles.
Granted the S-3 is a smaller aircraft than the C/E-2, yet it still has a better endurance with more than double the range and higher air speed, courtesy of the TF34 turbofans, which are essentially downscaled CF34s which China already has access to and could produce a domestic variant of, which would basically be a downscaled CJ-500.
Probably just about the only limiting factor with the S-3 is its size which may not be large enough to accommodate all the necessary electronics and equipment that the E-2 can in terms of using it effectively as an AEW&C aircraft, though I'm not quite sure whether a lengthened S-3 (basically an E-2 fitted with turbofans) would negatively affect its performance esp. in terms of endurance as compared to an actual E-2 with those T56 turboprops.
But then again, Northrop Grumman did propose a turbofan-equipped Greyhound at some point -
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Indeed. Weapons programs are borne out of military requirements, but are shaped by political forces. It is important to understand the circumstances and origins of weapons programs.
That said, the PLA could've very well done that.