China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft

WW4

New Member
Registered Member
The same thing happened when Boeing launched the 747. The JT9D engine had more issued than expected, so P&W had to redesign it. Boeing couldn't afford to stop making the planes, and knew a fix was on the way, so they continued running the production line. By the time the engine issue was resolved, there were 30 engine-less 747's parked around Everett! See this photo (...it doesn't show all 30...).
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If they haven't ordered more D-30's, but are still producing air frames, it might suggest that, like Boeing, they know the engine solution is imminent. That is an exciting thought.
 

Totoro

Major
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Here's a fan made what-if variant of Y-20. One that could perhaps serve as a better basis for other variants of the plane. Not optimized for cargo transport but optimized for longer endurance and tanker missions.

Underlying idea is to retain as much of the plane as possible, to simplify the development. Thus the whole wing structure and pretty much all aerodynamic surfaces are unchanged. Wing root box should also be unchanged. Cockpit could probably remain unchanged.

Changes would involve: New fuselage. New interface between wing root box and the fuselage. New landing gear.

Fuselage could be made narrower. That in itself should mean less weight and less drag. But since the floor of the plane doesn't actually need to carry heavy loads, the whole fuselage structure can be made simpler and lighter. It's not only the floor itself, but the side walls, that would otherwise be part of the structure supporting those heavy loads. Only structuraly heavy parts of the fuselage would be vertical joints leading from the wingbox to the main landing gear, as well as structure connecting the forward landing gear to the backbone of the plane.

Idea would be to feature a backbone (which exists anyway in Y20 fuselage, connecting the wingbox to the tail section) alongside the upper fuselage, from which the fuel tank section would hanging off. (a good deal of fuel would also be placed inside wing structure, IF Y20 already does it that way. Which it likely does, as most planes do)
Then underneath that backbone and fuel tanks would be the cabin space. Nothing too big. But it would provide ample space for AWACS operators anyway. Or for any kind of special missions planes.

Landing gear would have longer legs and would be closer to commercial airliners. MLG nacelles would still need to protrude from the fuselage, as otherwise the MLG would not be sufficiently far apart, but could be made smaller and less draggy. Instead of going straight up as on Y20, the MLG would fold to the side, inside the nacelle and closer to the center of the fuselage. As in most commercial airliners.

Overall, such a variant could be a few tens of tons lighter. And somewhat less draggy. Overall mission endurance might be improved by non-negligible margin. Theoretically, with whole plane being lighter, one day a whole new engine might be fit, and the plane modified to one such engine per wing, instead of 2, for further improvement in effectiveness.

Some future c292 derived plane might make such effort pointless, but if that gets protracted, a narrower y20 variant might not be so crazy. Though, realistically, it might still be too costly to develop, given the number of required planes to be produced.
fzC730
 

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
To be frank I was surprised the Russians did not throw a fit once the Y-20 came out. If it was like a decade ago they would have probably demanded that the Chinese buy Il-76s if they wanted any D-30 engines.
It wasn't China who failed that il-76 order to begin with.
 

SDWatcher

New Member
Registered Member
"Nevertheless, doing like this is achieved over many years of work. Y-20 and IL-76 are not only platforms belonging to the same level, the aerodynamic layouts are also not too different. The tankers are both modified to employ a soft tube hanging at the outer section of the wing, taper sleeved and docked, so that both rear-flow conditions are similar. This implies that after mastering the docking skills of J-20 and IL-78, the experience can naturally be applied to "20 feeding 20"."
 
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