I certainly don't believe that the WS-35 will be used to power the H-20, especially considering the sheer scale of difficulties and challenges facing all the Chinese engineers and technicians involved in the H-20 project.
They don't need any additional uncertainties or risks to pile on, and using mature engines (such as non-AB variant of WS-10) instead of an experimental/still WIP engine would be one way to enable that.
Yes, Cute Orca is the one saying that sometime prior to Zhuhai Expo 2024.
And that's from the Guancha Trios during one of the most recent Dragonfly FM podcasts highlighted in the H-20 thread (of which nobody seemed to have picked up on).
IMO, China likely won't be needing a An-225-class transporter.
Although, they certainly should aim for something that is either between the C-5 and An-124, or something between the An-124 and the Russian TTS "Elephant" project, as I believe that China does have needs for very large strategic airlifters for purposes that aren't strictly limited to the military.
Besides, whatever China's very large strategic airlifter is gonna be, it is prudent for people to not blindly copy whatever specifications they're reading about the C-5 and An-124 and directly paste them onto said Chinese airlifter itself. Some of the PLAAF's operational requirements for its warplanes (including airlifters) are going to have some drastic contrasts than those of the USAF and RuAF.
For instance:
- Does the USAF and RuAF require their airlifters to be able to operate from runways that are more than 3000 meters above the sea level as much as the PLAAF do?
- If the very large strategic airlifter is able to take off from runways that are 2600-2800 meters long instead of 3000+ meters long, how many more civilian airports and military airbases across China would be open to said airlifter to operate from? And what about runways that are 2400-2500 meters?
- Both the USAF and RuAF see their C-5s and An-124s as platforms for hub-to-hub transportation to rear airbases/airfields which are relatively safer and less exposed to the enemy, whereas the smaller C-137s and Il-76s are the platforms for hub-to-spoke transportation to frontline airbases/airfields which are much riskier and more exposed to the enemy. However, given how warfare has been evolving, such arrangements are steadily losing its ground - Namely, would there ever be enough airbases/airfields in the rear that are safe enough and secure enough from the proliferation of long range theater/strategic (VLO cruise and hypersonic) missiles?
This likely means having a combined engine thrust that is rough equivalent or somewhat smaller to the An-225 to power an airlifter that is roughly the size that is somewhere between C-5 and An-124 or somewhat bigger.
In the meantime, compared to civilian airliners - Military airlifters often have deep-rooted demands for reliability and redundancy, especially during wartime where damages are easy to incur/happen but difficult to remedy/rectify (e.g. suffering single-engine failure during takeoff when the airbase/airfield is under direct enemy threat/fire). This is one of the key reasons most of the mainstream airlifters of considerable sizes today are powered by not 2 but 4 engines, despite having readily-available engines with equivalent or greater thrust, better fuel economy and the reduction of the maintenance and logistic workloads that would enable the adoption of a 2-engine setting compared to a 4-engine setting.
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