lol you mean the northern neighbor? LolWell, there's one such country
Though both pride and ever more complex integration will get in the way.
On the other hand, shall those be resolved, future benefits for already frequent joint operations will be immense.
PLA AEW&C, SIGINT, EW and MPA thread
- Thread starter Sczepan
- Start date
I'm calling it. A general purpose narrow-body civilian airliner based aircraft (likely the C919) for special missions such as ASW/MPA is gonna be needed soon. The economics alone makes sense for China, it can leverage its insane mass production of those airframes (and whatever engine they may use) and use it for almost any special role. Keep the costs low and ROI high.
Let's just say that unless all of the following points are met:
1. All the key and major components of the C919 are fully indigenized as a basic requirement (which will take a good while, and without exhausting the PLA's patience); and
2. There are no inherent limitations or and restrictions on COMAC venturing into the PLA domain, whether those limitations and restrictions are imposed by the government, foreign entities, or both; and
3. The PLA finds the C919 perfectly suited for their needs -
Then having a military variant of C919 serving with the PLA is out of the question, unfortunately.
The United States already has a well built-up, immense mature civilian aerospace industry with decades of experiences under its belt where they can easily base their military platform on (i.e. Boeing being the primary representative of this trend) while benefiting from the economies of scale. China has no such luxury, and likely will remain the case until the late-2030s, at-the-earliest.
In the meantime, having a brand-new, military-only common aircraft platform where next-generation of special mission aircrafts can be based upon should do well (of which has been briefly touched upon in the previous page). And speaking of the costs and ROI involved - I certainly don't expect such platforms to only be procured in the 10s like the Kawasaki P-1, but in the low-100s at the very least (considering the immense need for various types of special mission aircrafts by the PLAAF and PLANAF for the foreseeable future). So that's still going to be some economies of scale working in favor for the PLA too.
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lcloo
Major
If Chine needs a fast solution on the air frame availability, acquiring and modifying used Boeing 737 from domestic airlines or Russian airlines' 737 (which are facing spare parts banned by US), and change some components, and engines if neccesary.
By doing so,
1) Fast stop gap solution until a proper size domestic air frame is developed.
2) Avoid taking up C919 delivery slots and causing delays to other buyers, and also avoid militarization of C919 which might hamper its sales on internationl market.
3) It can cause visual (and may be radar signature) confusion on the opponent observers, which could be a tactical advantage, example in aerial encounters with the Korean, Japanese, Indians, Australian, Canadians, causing hesitation on them etc.
By doing so,
1) Fast stop gap solution until a proper size domestic air frame is developed.
2) Avoid taking up C919 delivery slots and causing delays to other buyers, and also avoid militarization of C919 which might hamper its sales on internationl market.
3) It can cause visual (and may be radar signature) confusion on the opponent observers, which could be a tactical advantage, example in aerial encounters with the Korean, Japanese, Indians, Australian, Canadians, causing hesitation on them etc.
That's a highly problematic idea.
Why not just keep using the Y-20 platform? Sure it's slightly oversized, but the marginal added fuel costs and maintenance costs for the 4 engines is going to be tiny compared to the cost of some sort of civilian conversion.
If China is still planning to buy large numbers of new Boeing airliners (which does right now), and that China's aviation industry is yet to become fully capable of servicing all of their Boeing and Airbus airliners on their own while being fully cut-off from their relevant supporting services, then it would be rather ill-advised to do so.
I believe that the PLAAF has only procured used Boeing and Airbus airliners for VVIP transport and AACP conversion while strictly refraining from doing the same for all the other military usages (AEW&C, tanker, EW/ECM/ESM, ELINT/SIGINT, MPA etc) are pretty explanatory.
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Also keep in mind rcs figure claim is specific to wavelength, rcs for x-band to s-band to uhf would be completely different. Which reminds me, does the new awac use longer wavelength to counter stealth?
The C919 only has a MTOW of ~80k tons and this is unideal for some special mission aircraft. For reference, E-3, RC-135, and KC-46A are all in the 150k tons MTOW class.
The C929 is likely in the ~200-250k tons class, so clearly the 120-150k range won't be fulfilled anytime soon. We're looking at 3 digits of combined airframes here (tanker, ISR, transport, maybe AEW&C, and perhaps even MPA and EW), so even without being used as an airliner, the demand is visible. The plane could have some civilian applications nonetheless, such as being used for transport and cargo.
Keep in mind that the upcoming Y-30 will also play a key role in being a platform for many special mission aircraft.
The C929 is likely in the ~200-250k tons class, so clearly the 120-150k range won't be fulfilled anytime soon. We're looking at 3 digits of combined airframes here (tanker, ISR, transport, maybe AEW&C, and perhaps even MPA and EW), so even without being used as an airliner, the demand is visible. The plane could have some civilian applications nonetheless, such as being used for transport and cargo.
Keep in mind that the upcoming Y-30 will also play a key role in being a platform for many special mission aircraft.
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That's where the rumor of a 200k ton mtow twin jet comes in, transport aircraft is suboptimal for AEWC and other special mission aircraft that require a large complement on extended duty.
Once a frequency has been input into the equation, even if unknown, the ratio remains linear. 1 m2 at 480 km ratio claim thus remains linear even at far lower RCS, as the frequency doesn't change.
Of course we don't know what wavelengths new AEW planes use but it's certainly plausible they've moved to longer wavelengths. Both for counter stealth (primarily) and for lower power usage (secondary). A slight indication of that might be the fact KJ700 uses a single rotating array, instead of 3 fixed arrays of the KJ500. In so, said single array can take up almost the full diameter of the rotodome and is thus more suitable for a somewhat longer wavelength, while still keeping array resolution manageable.