Fair, but given the massive economy of scale that China operates at I don't think in a few years that'll be a problem anymore. Once a few of its areas, particularly in the civil aviation sector and HBRP engines mature enough, it can mostly just use its own "off-the-shelf" parts to keep the costs down. That's the the P-8 Poseidon is basically a 737.
PLA AEW&C, SIGINT, EW and MPA thread
- Thread starter Sczepan
- Start date
You can do it on 2 WS-20 though. Technically it may even make some sense to do some sort of H-6 replacement design, combining maritime strike and ASW in one moderately LO airframe.
Having separate fleets for these two tasks is IMHO redundant.
Yeah good point, doesn't the P-8 already carry long-range anti-ship missiles and possibly other strike weapons? I think a Sino-Poseidon makes sense just for that purpose alone. Being a maritime ASW/AEW/C is only more of a bonus
Having too many projects would appear to be less of an issue for China than keeping all the technical talent gainfully employed. This I think explains the current 'Cambrian Explosion' in Chinese air vehicle designs, rather than any urgent requirement to fill every last category of same.
It could simply be both, or rather the former enables China to do the latter. Remember, never in our history has another country been this wealthy, this influential and this significant in global affairs besides the United States. At some point, China will need to "fill every last category" as the US once did and continues to do. That is simply what happens if and when you attempt to become a global hegemon or at least challenge one.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t a turboprop better for MPA rather than turbofan?
Depends. If you've got near perfect air superiority, it is. If you need to worry about your planes being intercepted, being faster can sometimes help quite a bit. It can also help with time to target area. For the US at the time, speed was not a prerequisite of the competition. New built orion like airframes were competing against p8 proposal. Its possible boeing won , besides political clout, because small run of orion like aiframes was fairly expensive, while p8 could rely on sheer volume of b737 production to eek out a competitive price.
So we have both a twin jet(AEWC and dedicated tanker?) and quadjet(-124 class transport) using the 250kN class engines?
Adding to Totoro, it'll be quite hard to make turboprop plane LO.
Patrol planes haven't fought in maritime war since essentially WW2, but when they did last time (1945) - they were engaged by fighters all the time.
It's rather inconsistent to release J-36 and VLO hunter killer drones, yet not see what's going to happen on another end of the stick with B-21 (and note that during WW2 well armed allied bombers also prayed on Japanese patrol aircraft at every opportunity).
This is pretty much my idea. In a few years once China's civil aviation/aeroengine industry is running full-scale, we can probably expect to see something like a P-8 being talked about. The ROI is simply too good to pass up plus the export potential is massive too.