China's Air Force Requires *1,000* Y-20 Aircraft

During a 1-7 June technology innovation exhibition in Beijing, an official from the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) told the People's Daily newspaper that China required "more than 1,000" Xian Aircraft Corporation (XAC) Y-20 heavy strategic transport aircraft and that the country also plans to build transport aircraft comparable in size to that of the Antonov An-225 Mriya.

"More than 1,000 Y-20s will be needed," Zhu Qian, head of AVIC's Large Aircraft Development Office, told reporters, referring to the 200-tonne, 50- to 60-tonne cargo capacity, four turbofan-powered transport aircraft that first flew in January 2013.

While Zhu stated that this estimate "was based on the experience of the United States and Russia", he did not provide any further details. In 2014 the People's Liberation Army (PLA) National Defence University issued a report stating that China might require up to 400 Y-20 transport aircraft.

www.janes.com...

anzha

Hmm, wonder where they plan on using them to transport their soldiers to?

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
anzha

Hmm, wonder where they plan on using them to transport their soldiers to?

Well the PLAs mobility and logistics are terrible. They almost never leave their local base for training exercises and are pretty much stuck taking trains to get anywhere. One of the reasons the Army is so large is that is does not move much. If they modernize the PLA like they want it will require a huge logistics trail. Although with the current economic troubles in China I would suggest that number is a pipe dream.

Red Dawn

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

Well the coin has Canada on one side and Africa on the other....promises promises made in the dark....promises promises which show the true mark.

a reply to: MrSpad

The size of the PLA is a little deceptive. The ranks increase by 6 million every year as collage freshmen are required to go through the communist party "training" in the army before the start of classes for that year. They are only in for about a month however and really don't learn anything important to war fighting.
They possible might be considering changing this to keep some of them in service for longer or moving them around in greater numbers but I don't think their 1000 number is anything more that rhetoric directed at western leaders and like yu say just a "pipe dream".

www.youtube.com...

Have they got a 1000 combat ready pilots?

a reply to: Blackfinger

They have 1,000,000 combat ready pilots sitting at the X-Box consoles as we speak.

Wakey wakey....lol....war is about production and destruction of production.....just destroy the infrastructure and ability to rebuild it.....no rebuild and the war is over.

With the ease with which an EMP can be produced....the entire game is changed.......if we saw a series of Global EMPs which we WOULD....then we are all back to square one....and the Chineese are then handbuilding huge ships to transport their now dominant army wherever they choose.......MADD via EMP gives China an easy entry win on every front .Try to tell me the people behind the suppression and theft of his genius of Tesla didnt know what an EMP was???....they INTENTIONALLY CRIPPLED MOST OF THE MODERN WORLD BY FURTHERING EDISONS TROJAN-HORSE TECHNOLOGY GLOBALLY.

We can now be taken out CLEANLY WITHOUT DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH NUKES.....just EMP us and let us spin in circles and starve while China builds ships to come claim their prize.Once technology is removed from the equation ...numbers suddenly matter again.Maybe someone should give the India military 1000 of those transports.just to keep China paying attention.

Dont worry about the Transport ships worry about a National Family focused Drone building effort by the people of China.....500,000,000 co-ordinated drones in the air and its all over.

A thousand aircraft doesn't mean a thousand available aircraft. You have a portion of the fleet in maintenance for anything from just being broke, to a full up tear down at the depot. At one point the US, with a far smaller military, had more airlift than that though. The KC-135, which is used for airlift, peaked at over 800 aircraft. Then there were the C-5s, C-141s, and C-130s as well. And eventually the KC-10 and C-17.

Shall I sharpen some bamboo?

Photos of the supposedly operational Y-20s.


china-defense.blogspot.com...

Africa. They are colonizing the place through back door means pretty quickly.

Seriously, has anyone actually looked at current Chinese airlift capability? China wants almost desperately to be a superpower, but is barely a regional power honestly. They currently have almost zero airlift capability, with all of it, except for a handful of Il-76s that have been modernized, based on old Soviet aircraft. Their Il-76s (all 13 or so) are the only aircraft they have capable of performing any kind of airlift mission to just about anywhere outside of China. They don't need a reason to build an airlift capability beyond the fact that they desperately need one.

originally posted by: anzha
Photos of the supposedly operational Y-20s.


china-defense.blogspot.com...

Why do their aircraft always seem like a Western/Siviet/Ukranian hybrids?

With the obvious 3 answers being, espionage, form follows function and partnerships, surely being a wannabe superpower they could have designed from scratch lifting body double deck stuff?

It strikes me that they don't have the knowledge to design from scratch innovative platforms which would lead to a better understanding of avionics and logistics.

And whilst I feel like that, I think everything that is pushed or towed out of their production facility is likely to suffer attrition very quickly from maintenance and poor quality products and at the hands of any modern western fighter.

a reply to: Forensick

Why? The Y-20 has taken less than 10 years to enter service. It took 10 years for the C-17 to fly after being selected in the C-X program, and almost 15 to enter service.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Forensick

Why? The Y-20 has taken less than 10 years to enter service. It took 10 years for the C-17 to fly after being selected in the C-X program, and almost 15 to enter service.

Why to what - the attrition rate?

Because if I suspect they are just straight up copying airframe designs in windtunnels, then they may not design to manufacture, design to repair, design redundant systems, design tough enough components because they don't understand what they are doing, they are just copying.

Of course, that is my suspicions with them, they may have it all down straight, but I doubt it.

You also say it took the Y-20, 10 years to enter service but the C-17 took 15? Is that because you think they are faster at designing and certifying aircraft? Just trying to understand the context, to me, that would say they have a far less strict testing regime because they don't understand what they need to test, hence to my original point on attrition rate?

a reply to: Forensick

Because they're taking fairly known components and putting them in a different configuration so they don't require as much testing as a clean sheet design would.

They're not making a straight copy using Western parts, in an identical configuration, they're making a copy using known Chinese parts, in a configuration that works for them, so they know about the wear, and replacement time, and all that.