Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Exercise that took place at the end of May PLAN airforce north fleet, in the Bay of Bohai.
PLA AEW&C, SIGINT, EW and MPA thread
- Thread starter Sczepan
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Here is the video of the above exercise
Not full scale testing, merely a static display, merely for modeling purposes or PR and perhaps flight deck movement demos. That airframe needs cats to take off from an operational platrom. Right now means nothing, testing the scale, shape on a close proximity of an operational flight deck. Valuable info to be sure, but can be done on my lapop with much the same result. Does, however show where they want to go.
Yes...but the scale compared to the J-15 seems to be off.
That aircraft wing span and size would be larger IMHO.
The seating for the pilots is side by side, and there would be four to six other personnel in such an aircraft operating various consoles and equipment.
That "model" on deck does not seem large enough to me.
I'm measuring 70% greater wingspan of the AEW&C over the Flanker. Considering the Hawkeye has 67% greater wingspan over an Su-33 (24.6m/14.7m), I'd say the model we see in the picture is completely to scale.
As I said, it "seems" to be off.
I show the wingspan on the J-15 there to be about 45 ft and the AEW bird to be close to 75...and that is probably, in terms of wingspan, all right, particularly given the image and its clarity (or lack thereof).
But the other dimensions in terms of the fuselage width and room for the personnel seems to be off a bit.
That's all.
I know how many people an E-2 carries (usually six or more), and there just does not seem to be as much room there.
That does not mean the PLAN is not serious or is making mistakes. To the contrary, to me it is clear that the PLAN is developing an AEW aircraft for catapult launch. And I think we have seen some pretty good pics of it here on SD and this thread.
That mockup just appeared to be a little small to me is all. But it is probably ok.
Given the error that results from relatively low quality satellite images, and when considering the size of the mock ups, I suspect that any perceived slightly small dimensions is a result of the low quality of the satellite image and/or other visual effects is just visual and that the real thing's dimensions is sensible and consistent with what we would expect for a mock up of its purpose.
In other words, I think any mention of any minor possible discrepancy in dimensions in this case is basically not even worth pointing out, given the quality of the image resulting in significant visual error, and considering this is a mock up anyway.
And to be honest I think it doesn't look off at all. When one looks at a photo of the fuselage width of an funfolded E-2 taken at a certain height and then zoomed in to simulate the same kind of low quality photo of the wuhan mock up, its proportions look similarly "off" but really it's just normal.
(note the photo isn't meant to suggest that the two aircraft are the exact same size, having them next to each other is more to demonstrate that taking photos of sufficiently low quality and then zooming in will present visual errors that make things seem "off")
Edit: let's also remember E-2D only has three other personnel in addition to pilot and copilot, so I'm not sure why you expect the Chinese carrier AEWC to have an extra 4-6 crew in addition to the two pilots. I mean, I'm not opposed to having an extra console or something, but if we are trying to judge a sensible size for the Chinese AEWC I see no reason to immediately put forward a crew that is that much bigger than an E-2D.
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