SinoDefence Forum

montyp165

This is probably the real deal, considering the benefits of having an indigenous product to work with, along with export possibilities too.

challenge

report that ukrainian firm antonov provide technical assisstant.
possible a stretch fuselage 230~250 ton transport is in the drawing board.
already the russian is planning C-17 alike IL-476 transport.

maya

it is just a full scale engineering mock-up.the prototype of Y-20 is still under design and her maiden flight is scheduled for 2012.

Maggern

A nice strategy of divide and rule if true. If the Russians are making a fuzz over their deal, go to their nemesises in the Ukraine.

Quickie

If this is true, it would be the perfect way to dissapoint the fanboys. First, make an ambiguous announcement that the actual prototype would be shown. Then, when the actual day comes, just show them some pictures and some mockups and say something like most of stuffs are still in preliminary stages of development.

But, don't you think this goes against the norm of the PLA only announcing something when they are already way ahead with the project.

danielchin

I think it is the new policy following the issuing of the defense white paper to make China's military development more transparent to the world.

pla101prc

i think the airforce took the word "transparent" a bit too literally in recent days...man i thought these guys were supposed to be good at word games

Totoro

There may be another reason why will the development of the new transport plane be so transparent and why we will see full sized mocukps long before the first flight.

Export potential.

Unlike j10 and other planes, a transport plane is considerably less important asset to keep its technical abilities under wraps.

More importantly, there is a very noticable gap in making in heavy lift market. C-17 is ceasing production, IL76 has been on the market for decades, there are hundreds of them flying around and will need replacing in the next 10, 20 years. Newer variants of il76 have been advertised but so far have been produced only in very small numbers. Production capabilities for il76 seem to have atrified, as we could have seen in the china order of 35+ planes, which proved to be far too much of a bite for the production lines.

Other contenders are pretty much non existant, as theyre smaller planes, some even in different classes of propulsion, etc.

Near future strategic airlifter market is up for grabs and it seems chinas new plane is very well positioned to have first bids at it.

montyp165

After having a heated argument on another forum over the Y-20 project, I do say that the heavy transport program is in some ways even more critical than some fighter programs and such, because a successful development of this program would achieve a critical mass for the Chinese aviation and powerplant industry in many areas, and that reason alone is sufficient to place a high priority on this project.

sydneylaide

No, it is a prototype and its maiden flight will be in 2010, next year.

maozedong

we just forget "mock up" or prototype.
but he must show the reliable source about "Y-20", how dose he know "Y-20" first fly in 2012? how dose he know this plane is "Y-20" ?
Y-10 project is dead, but there is Y-12, Y-13,Y-14.... how come suddenly jump up to "Y-20"?
A Man post about "Y-20", but he can not tell us where this source come from, I am afraid of if this source just from some one's blog in chinese forum.

montyp165

Y-12 and Y-14 are already used for one thing, so the Y-20 designation does makes sense.

maozedong

we have single number Y-7,Y-9, if Y-12,14 has been used, but Y-13,Y-15,16,17,18,19, why jump up to Y-20? also, how do they know this plane is Y-20? any officiale source for this?

montyp165

Y-11 for example is also used, but number designations do not necessarily have to go sequentially, after all there's no F-13 in the US Air Force for instance.

maya

According to a paper in the collected papers of CSAA(Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics) annual conference, the basic variant of Y-20 has a MTOW of approximately 180t ,a payload of over 50t and a ~50m wingspan. Designed as the successor to the in-service Il-76MD,Y-20 features a large cargo cabin with ~4m wide at floor level (compared to the Il-76's 3.45m)and its volume is increased by ~30% over that of Il-76 .

this paper also disclosed that the large tansport was scheduled to enter service around 2015...