The first image is a close-up of the KJ-500's radome, and the second is a close-up of the KJ-500A's radome—you can clearly see the distinct differences in their structure:
PLA AEW&C, SIGINT, EW and MPA thread
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The first image is a close-up of the KJ-500's radome, and the second is a close-up of the KJ-500A's radome—you can clearly see the distinct differences in their structure:
Do you know if newer KJ-500s have been seen with similar or only As?
good video here on KJ-200 and the history of developing it's platform instead of Y-8C
If I remembered correctly, this is when they went through the Y8F200 to Y8F400 platforms to get something that was appropriate for the surveillance work they wanted to do.
Needed to raise service life of airframe from 20000 hours to 30000 hours.
Sounds like they made the fuselage wall thinner and increased fuel payload from 14.5t to 17.8t (this is one of the few actual nuggets that we've heard in these videos)
Says this was internationally leading at the time and took just 8 months to design and 2 years to first flight.
Got some photos here of the Y-9 Cabin including the bathroom
Y9FQ - some key features showcased here.
of the sea search radar
the EW antenna (extremely interesting since it's designed to pick up the EM from underwater) - I always thought MPAs can pick up the emissions from submarine operating at PD and trying to send signals to satellites and such. But it's interesting to see it can pick up EM signals from even lower than that.
weapon bay carrying torpedoes and depth charges
mad boom
Sonobuoy array launcher
another good video. comparing KJ-200 to KJ-500 platforms.
Says the radar on KJ-500 is at least double the weight of the one on KJ-200. It's 7.8 m diameter. So at lot of additional work to deal with the inevitable challenges of carrying such a large radome on top. Made sense to do it on a new platform like Y-9.
It would seem to me that having a new 30t transport platform that can refuel in air, uses the latest efficient propulsion and greater fuel payload is a pretty important project. You don't really want Y-20 sized platform for all the special mission stuff imo.
A couple more information from the CCTV-1 program:
- The Y-8C's service life is 20000 hours, which is upgraded to 30000 hours for the KJ-200.
- The Y-8C's fuel capacity is 14.56 tons, which is raised to 17.8 tons on the KJ-200.
I posted that in the post previous to the one you quoted.
But yes, these were very interesting numbers. I'm curious to see what the numbers are for Y-9. 17.8t is a lot of fuel for an aircraft whose max payload is 23t and need to carry so much electronics.
But if Y-9 is 25t as online sources suggest (again, I don't remember if this was ever recorded), then that probably allows them to continue to have 17t of payload while carrying a huge ass radar on top + all the electronics around (which all must be just huge power consumers).
That's why I think 30t maybe an ideal payload. extra 5t + latest propulsion and material would give them maybe 25% longer endurance before refueling + room for all the electronics they need for the next few years. It just seems to me that KJ-700 power demand is going to be a lot higher than KJ-500 and Y-9 platform's MTOW isn't increasing to compensate for that, so net result is less endurance/range.
sir, this is why Shaanxi actively working on next gen and bigger platform Y-30 to replace older Y-8/Y-9 platforms.
@ACuriousPLAFan i remember, Guancha Trios too mentioned Y-30.. project accelerated
I don't think using a prop plane for special mission aircraft is future proof anymore. With all the long range missiles coming to destroy AWACS and other force multipliers, I think the next step in AWACS/ECM/ELINT planes is to go with a stealthy platform.
Some kind of flying wing or other stealthy design with large side but stealthy shaped radars is going to be more survivable than another prop plane. Also power processing demands are increasing to such levels that Y-20 is probably better for a large scale AWACS/ECM plane rather than Y-9 or Y-30.
So, I think future PLA AWACS/ECM force should consist of ultra large transporter or Commercial widebody airline derivative. These planes will focus on very large array with high power generation.
And a smaller stealthy platform that could be flying wing or other shape, but stealthy design all around for its arrays.
good point from this guy on the new KJ-3000 radar. dual back to back double band radar allows the largest possible radar antenna.
One being VHF and the other being L band. IIRC, KJ-700 is also like that. I also think maybe the radome size is larger on KJ-3000. Certainly, the power supply has to be a lot more too.
I wonder if they didn't have the tech back in the days to use VHF band and make it useful, so the AWACS radome was always L band. Also VHF band requires a larger sized antenna, so it makes sense now that they put it through the diameter of the radome, they can use VHF band