How many Y-9's are produced each year ( I suppose no Y-8's are being produced ) from which some are used for producing these special aircraft and the others are used as transport aircraft. How are they produced? Is it series production? Are they adapted during production or are they "completed" and then rebuild similar to what happened with US bombers during WWII?
PLA AEW&C, SIGINT, EW and MPA thread
- Thread starter Sczepan
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Heh, I've been wondering the same question for the last few years, but the truth is nobody really knows how many Y-9 airframes are being built per year. And we definitely do not know how many special mission types are being built per year of per type... for all we know it may vary year to year depending on requirements.
However, I do believe that special mission Y-9 variants are adapted during production directly into their variants -- they are not first "completed" into the full standard transport Y-9 and then converted into their special mission variants, because such a method would obviously be a waste of time and money and needlessly complex.
Of course, converting airframes directly into variants is pretty par the course for these type of planes; production E-3s, KC-135s were mostly converted from airframes directly from the production line rather than rebuilt from already built C-135s or 707s, in the same way that modern aircraft like P-8A or various tankers are converted directly from the airframe production line into their variants (or may even have dedicated production lines for their variant) instead of being converted only after the airframe has been built into a "completed" Boeing 737 or 767 or A330 or what not...
Some air forces or companies do convert "completed" airframes into special mission aircraft -- IAI offers the conversion of existing Boeing 767s to tankers, and the China Air Force has also obviously converted existing "completed" aircraft like Il-76s and Tu-154Ms for their KJ-2000s and Type II SAR aircraft, respectively -- but generally speaking if a country has the domestic industry to produce the airframes themselves, then they will produce special mission aircraft directly from the airframe production line instead of waiting for the aircraft to be completed... unless there are unique circumstances such as if it's a one-off test/prototype special mission aircraft, or if the aircraft they want to convert is out of production, or even sometimes due to cost.
That's just what I thought. The size of Y-9 production must be just as important as that of Y-20 although it is less glamorous ....
btw in terms of # of Y-8s, they are certainly constantly building more, but it does take time to build up a fleet of these special mission aircraft, especially in the case of Y-8Q.
It's not just how much SAC is capable of producing, but also how quickly they can train enough people to utilize the platforms. And they are still producing Y-9 transports, so you probably will only dedicate one production line for the special missions variants of Y-8/9. A few years ago, they were at 10 special missions aircraft a year and they are probably around that now. And a good amount of that production goes to KJ-500.
It's not just how much SAC is capable of producing, but also how quickly they can train enough people to utilize the platforms. And they are still producing Y-9 transports, so you probably will only dedicate one production line for the special missions variants of Y-8/9. A few years ago, they were at 10 special missions aircraft a year and they are probably around that now. And a good amount of that production goes to KJ-500.
So that means the old Y-8 line remained and is only used for special mission aircraft and a new line for Y-9 transports was added?
I'm pretty sure no more Y-8 airframes are being produced at all, and that all prior Y-8 airframe production has been converted to Y-9 airframes.
Whether they've added another Y-9 production line is another quesiton.
