Y-20 heavy transport aircraft to boost China's military capabilities

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Companion Thread: Obama loosens sanctions on C-130s to China


China's Y-20 Transport Prepares for 1st Test Flight

East AsiaRegionSecurityTopicChina

January 08, 2013 By Andrew Erickson and Gabe Collins

While China's stealth aircraft prototypes may get all the buzz, the Y-20 offers new military operational possibilities.


The Y-20 at Yanliang on Jan. 1. Photo: GeoEye GeoEye 1

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In 2011 and 2012, China flight-tested stealth fighter prototypes developed by Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (J-20) and Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (J-31). In 2013, Xi’an Aircraft Corporation (XAC) will look to get into the new aircraft game by flight-testing a prototype of the Y-20, an indigenously-developed large transport aircraft similar in size to the Russian IL-76 and somewhat smaller than the U.S. C-17. The Y-20 program is part of an effort to develop an indigenous long-range jet-powered heavy transport aircraft, a top priority in China’s “Medium- and Long-Term National Science and Technology Development Program (2006–20)” (MLP).

Now satellite images have revealed the Y-20’s presence at Yanliang airfield, near Xi’an, which hosts the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)’s China Flight Test Establishment (CFTE). There it reportedly began low-speed taxi testing on December 21, 2012. On January 3, 2013, Aviation Industry of China (AVIC) Chairman and Party Secretary Lin Zuoming visited Yanliang to observe the situation there and offer his gratitude for contributions made and successes achieved by the numerous CFTE and XAC personnel who have been toiling to prepare testing and test flights. While it is only natural for an aviation executive to engage in such activities at a flight test center, the Y-20’s presence there nevertheless suggests that its test flight is one of the ones being readied. What will a Y-20 test flight suggest about China’s aviation development and military capabilities?

Status and Attributes

On December 27, 2012, PLA Ministry of National Defense spokesman Yang Yujun (杨宇军) confirmed what grainy photos that appeared on the Internet several days before already suggested: “to meet the requirements of national economic and social development, support modernization of the armed forces, [and] improve humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and other emergency tasks, China is undertaking its own development of large transport aircraft (大型运输机), to build and strengthen air transport capacity.” Yang asserted that “The research and development of China’s large transport aircraft is proceeding as planned.”

Yang was also careful to emphasize, however, that the Y-20’s research, development, and acquisition (RDA) process would take time: “Large transport aircraft are technically complex, and need to undergo a series of research and development processes [including] design, prototype, test, [and] test flight.”

The timing of the Y-20’s images and “announcement” was interesting. While it might have been a coincidence based on long-term programmatic development, or even timed deliberately to minimize U.S. reactions amid holidays and fiscal cliff negotiations, it is also possible that it was influenced by such internal organizational considerations as approvals, budgets, program timelines, or the need for Xi’an to record a success in 2012 following major publicity for Chengdu and Shenyang’s accomplishments.

As for specific characteristics, the Y-20 appears to have a well-shaped, capacious cargo hold—a logical design, given its intended core role. It is much wider and taller than that of the Russian IL-76, as well as anything that a future transport variant of China’s C-919 commercial airline would be likely to offer. More importantly, the Y-20’s dimensions and maximum load capability are likely compatible with whatever the PLA wants to transport in the future, just as A-400M was specifically designed to be able to accommodate certain types of future-generation European armored personnel carriers (APCs), both dimensionally and weight-wise. Conversely, if dimensionally the Y-20 “only” fits the PLA’s Type 99 tanks and current- or future-generation APCs or heavy trucks, this might indicate that a larger model to haul main battle tanks could follow in the future.

Both civil and military dimensions of Chinese “large aircraft” development are highlighted in China’s MLP: “Major special items refer to major strategic products, key generic technologies, and major projects that are to be completed within certain time frames through core technology breakthroughs and resource integration in order to achieve national goals; they are the priority of priorities in China’s S&T development. The Program Guidelines identify 16 major special items covering… large aircraft…” As Xinhua reported in 2008, “According to ‘An Argumentation Report on the Plan for Building Large Aircraft’ [大型飞机方案论证报告] which was published earlier, China’s large aircraft research and development project will have an initial estimated investment of about 60 billion yuan. About 40 billion yuan will be used for the research and development of large-sized civil passenger planes and about 20 billion yuan for the research and development of large-sized military transport planes.” This bifurcation might also constitute an attempt to create plausible denial regarding any future cross-subsidization charges.

Is China indeed devoting major resources to military transport development, and could the Y-20 be one of the principal MLP-funded programs? An article entitled “Existing Domestic Transonic Wind Tunnels Satisfy the Required Conditions for Assessing Large Aircraft Tests” (国内现有跨声速风洞满足大飞机试验需求情况的评估分析) suggests that this may indeed be the case. It was apparently published as part of the “Large Aircraft Key Technology High-Level Forum/China Aviation Association 2007 Annual Conference Proceedings” (大型飞机关键技术高层论坛暨中国航空学会2007年学术年会论文集). In it, Wu Junqiang and Xu Wu (吴军强, 徐来武), researchers at China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center’s High Speed Institute (中国空气动力研究与发展中心高速所), assert that China’s “large transport aircraft has a maximum takeoff weight [MTOW] of 180 tons, a maximum load capacity of over 50 tons, with a wingspan of about 50 meters, and performance superior to [that of the] IL-76” (大型运输机最大起飞重 量达到180吨左右, 最大载重量超过50吨, 翼展约50米, 性能优于伊尔一76). If this apparent disclosure is correct, it is interesting that they didn’t baseline these specifications against the IL-476 with its newer PS-90 engines. As for comparison with the IL-76, it would be interesting to know whether the Y-20 is designed to have the same short-take-off and deteriorated/rough-field capability as the IL-76; if not, this would greatly reduce its value.

Another intriguing question concerns the precise role that Ukraine, with its expertise in transport aircraft, has played in the Y-20’s development.

“Following the Cold War, Ukraine has emerged as a particularly willing partner for China’s defense sector,” international aerospace expert Reuben Johnson tells us. “Unlike Moscow, Kiev buys few indigenous products for its military. Russia and Ukraine pursue a symbiotic sales-services division of labor vis-Ã*-vis China, with Russia tending to sell complete systems and Ukraine offering support, servicing, and modification of key components.” At the 2011 Paris Air Show, Johnson reported that Antonov’s General Designer Dmitro Kiva “told the press that there are three areas of activity with the Chinese: the ARJ-21 regional jet [for which Antonov designed the wings], improvements to the Y-8F600, which is based on the old AN-12 design, and a cooperative development effort for a next-generation transport called Y-X. Kiva said he could not comment on whether this aircraft would be a jet or turboprop, but some derivative of the turboprop-driven AN-70 is thought to be one of the options that Chinese industry is evaluating.” While it would seem likely to draw on Antonov’s expertise in some fashion, the Y-20 appears more similar to the less-advanced IL-76 then the AN-70. Perhaps difficulty in emulating the AN-70’s advanced counter-rotating turboprop influenced the Y-20’s development, perhaps China is determined to develop a jet-engine transport for other reasons. In any case, like the J-20 and J-21 fighters, the Y-20 goes beyond China’s earlier close-copying/emulation of specific foreign aircraft to a more diversified approach that may draw on greater Chinese indigenous inputs and yield greater capabilities.

Putting the Y-20 to Work

Chinese generals and policymakers have now experienced firsthand how useful indigenous long-range air transport capability can be. In late February 2011, the PLAAF used four of its IL-76 transport aircraft to evacuate Chinese citizens from Libya as Qaddafi’s regime fell. The successful Libya evacuation operation likely strengthened the hand of those in the PLAAF who want to procure large, jet-powered transport aircraft to facilitate power projection. There are five strategic reasons why the PLAAF might prefer an indigenously-made aircraft, provided that quality and performance can be assured.

Reason 1: The Y-20 stands to help China create credible long-range military air transport and power projection capabilities commensurate with its growing international interests. China’s current ability to transport large vehicles and other hardware via long-range military airlift is limited.

In the short term, the PLA already has long-distance transport options through access to commercial airlines. For higher-intensity missions such as protection/evacuation of Chinese citizens trapped by conflict abroad, however, armored vehicles may be needed. These are too large to be loaded onto most chartered commercial aircraft, which lack loading ramps and would require a purpose-built military transport aircraft.

As for lifting capacity, in an example of the importance of dimensional and payload “fit,” Russian sources suggest the Y-20 underwent redesign in 2010 to enable it to lift the PLA’s heaviest armored vehicle, the 58 tonne Type 99A2 main battle tank. This would place the Y-20’s lifting capacity around that of the IL-76 MF (60 tonne payload capacity) and perhaps between the IL-76 MF and C-17 Globemaster (77.5 tonne maximum payload), depending on the power of the engines available.

A maximum payload in the 60 tonne range would suggest an aircraft that could fly a substantial distance with smaller payloads such as armored personnel carriers or attack helicopters such as China’s new WZ-10, which is small enough to be carried inside of an IL-76-class transport aircraft. For instance, with its maximum payload of 60 tonnes, the IL-76 MF can fly 4,000 km, but lowering the load to 40 tonnes increases the range to 6,200 km. To be sure, transporting attack helicopters by airlift is difficult and they are maintenance-intensive; without the attendant support equipment and spare parts it is impossible to sustain operations for very long.

If the Y-20 can achieve similar performance levels, it might be able to fly non-stop with payloads of light armored vehicles, helicopters, and other military assets from airfields in Western China into Eastern Africa. For reference, Khartoum, Sudan lies approximately 5,000 km from Kashgar in Western Xinjiang. Of course, depending on season and weather the Y-20 might not be able to make it nonstop to Khartoum with the abovementioned payloads due to performance issues when heading “into the wind” on a westerly course.

Reason 2: The Y-20 offers a multi-use airframe. Any role that the IL-76 airframe can be adapted to (tanker, airborne early warning), the Y-20 airframe could likely also assume. Replacing Russian airframes with indigenously-made ones would be both a point of pride for Beijing and also one of strategic utility, as it would lessen the PLA’s dependence on Russian hardware for key roles.

The Y-20’s airframe could serve as the basis for a capacious aerial tanker suitable for refueling the large J-11 series fighters and eventually the J-20 as well, in addition to the PLA’s smaller tactical aircraft such as the J-10 and eventually the J-31. The fact that Xi’an Aircraft Corporation is responsible for building the PLA’s existing H-6U Badger tankers suggests the company has substantial in-house ability that could quickly be applied to creating a tanker based on the Y-20 airframe.

The Y-20 could also give the PLA an aerial refueling platform with sufficient capacity to refuel large long-range bombers, transports, and maritime patrol aircraft, something that its existing H-6U tankers cannot carry enough fuel to do. In one indicator of what a “tankerized” Y-20 airframe might ultimately be capable of, the Russian Air Force uses the similarly sized IL-78 Midas tanker to refuel a wide range of aircraft, including strategic bombers like the TU-160 Blackjack, patrol aircraft such as the TU-95 Bear, and medium-sized bombers like the TU-22 Backfire.

Reason 3: The Y-20 could reduce China’s reliance on Russian aircraft. An indigenous transport program could eventually end Beijing’s dependence on Moscow to supply IL-76 long-range transports. It could also help to reduce China’s reliance on Russian engines by providing a strong strategic motivation to power the Y-20 with domestically-made jet engines in order to eliminate the potential for foreign engine suppliers to gain a strategic veto over future production or exports of the Y-20 or other large aircraft that China might build. As China potentially gains non-Russian assistance from companies like GE in developing and producing a jet engine for its commercial aircraft projects, it is likely to substantially curtail, and eventually end, its dependence on jet engines imported from Russia. This is a difficult task indeed, but one that Beijing is finally making a major priority, and resourcing accordingly.

A Chinese “Heart” for the Y-20?

Aeroengine development and production remains the pinnacle of aviation technology, one for which only three firms—GE, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls Royce—are on the cutting-edge globally. For the foreseeable future, the Y-20 will use imported engines: most likely the loud, fuel-guzzling Soloviev D-30-K2 (Д-30КП2) engines that power the IL-76.

Closer to 2020, XAC will probably try to use a variant of the CJ1000A (“Yangtze 1000”) domestic high-bypass-ratio turbofan engine that China is developing for the C919 civilian airliner with assistance from Germany’s MTU Aero Engines in the Y-20. Some Internet sources refer to this military variant as the “WS-18.” Such an ambitious timeframe fits with that laid out by Feng Jinzhang, head of R&D for the engine project, who says the goal is for a domestic Chinese civil aeroengine to be mass-produced and in use by 2020.

Civilian aeroengine development can also help military aeroengine development and in China the two sectors will almost certainly be tightly integrated. Multiple factors motivate such civil-military integration, including the reality that it is much easier for civilian entities to obtain such capabilities as foreign design/lifecycle management software, project management tools/systems for multiple parallel critical paths, test cell design, managerial processes, design processes, and revision and document control.

The closeness of civil and military uses for large high-bypass turbofans also raises concerns about unauthorized technology transfers whereby an ostensibly commercial transaction or investment benefits Chinese military modernization efforts directly. China’s development of the WZ-10 attack helicopter’s powerplant exemplifies the speed with which technology shared for commercial purposes can be assimilated into a military program. The WZ-10 program used engine control software that Pratt & Whitney supplied for a “civilian medium helicopter,” but should have known that the ultimate end-use was likely a military application. Indeed, in June 2012, Pratt & Whitney agreed to pay U.S. $75 million in penalties to settle criminal charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice as a result of the software sale.

Such commonality is also highly relevant for large high-bypass turbofans of the type that the Y-20 would need. Just as Chinese helicopter-maker Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation acquired Pratt & Whitney engine control software under the guise of needing it for a “civilian medium helicopter,” so too will China’s civil airline makers be able to seek foreign turbofans whose technology then ends up in military powerplants.
The transfer of use would be straightforward, as the same large high-bypass turbofans used in civilian airliners can, with little or no modification, power large military aircraft including tankers, transports, and AWACS. For example, the major U.S. heavy lift aircraft (C-17 and C-5), tankers (KC-10 and KC-135), and AWACS and others (E-3A and P-8A) all either are, or can be, powered by engines that are essentially identical to commercial aircraft powerplants.

Reason 4: China likely desires the freedom to export the Y-20 and future derivatives. If Chinese aircraft makers rely on imported Russian engines, this potentially gives Russia veto power over China’s ability to export planes that might compete with Russian sales. China has already suffered this experience once with Russian opposition to exports of the JF-17 strike fighter, which employs Russian RD-33 turbofans and could compete with the Russian MiG-29 in export markets. If it could achieve the requisite civilian certification, China might ultimately even attempt to export the Y-20 into the global civilian heavy lift market that is currently monopolized by the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. The U.S., for instance, has sold B-747 freighters to a number of national carriers, including Chinese airlines.

Reason 5: This would enable the PLA to conduct large-scale medium-to-long-distance air assault/parachute insertion operations. Such a capability could improve the PLAAF 15th Airborne Corps’ three airborne divisions’ and related forces ability to engage in everything from domestic disaster relief to internal stability maintenance to troop ramp-ups during military operations. Domestic non-military operations like disaster relief could include the ability to fly into an earthquake-affected area with a short-/deteriorated-field performance type of aircraft carrying large quantities of relief goods or heavy equipment like mobile water treatment equipment. The most recent experiences for the PLA in this regard, e.g., during the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, have highlighted the need for rotary wing and heavy lift resources to handle domestic disasters and thereby win hearts and minds.

Conclusion: A successful Y-20 prototype flight test will bring China one step closer to joining an elite aerospace club—nations that can indigenously produce intercontinental-range heavy transport aircraft. Yet the test will also expose—once again—remaining shortcomings in China’s domestic aviation industry capabilities and highlight the strategic vulnerabilities that arise when a country must import engines, the heart of any aircraft. Three of the most challenging aspects of an aircraft are its wings, metallurgy/composite materials, and engines. Whereas wing fabrication remains one of the key areas that a top corporation like Boeing rarely outsources, AVIC retained Antonov to help develop wings for—at very least—the ARJ-21.* Whereas metallurgy is an exacting science on which the Soviet Union lavished tremendous resources, China’s expertise in this area still appears incomplete. Finally, aeroengines remain China’s greatest aviation weakness. “Like other aircraft projects, the Y-20 project is still facing the same problem—engines,” states Senior Capt. Li Jie, an expert at China’s Naval Research Institute. “But if we overcome such a knotty problem, the PLA’s ability to project military force on the battlefield or send relief materials to disaster-hit areas would definitely be strengthened.”

Whatever weaknesses it retains today, however, China’s aviation industry is gaining altitude rapidly. The Y-20 test will reaffirm China’s growing prowess as an airframe builder and will almost certainly further motivate Beijing to ensure that China’s aeroengine makers have the resources they need to pursue a domestically-made large aircraft engine. Y-20 development will put China on the cusp of being able to manufacture a wide range of large transport and tanker airframes and to use them to achieve manifold military objectives, such as improving power projection abilities. Ultimately, China will want to be able to use indigenously-built engines to keep them airborne.

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Y-20 heavy transport aircraft to boost military capabilities

The Y-20 aircraft is part of the PLA's plans to modernise its hardware, but engine problems continue to hinder its successful development

Friday, 04 January, 2013, 12:00am

Minnie Chan minnie.chan@scmp.com

The development of the Y-20 heavy transport aircraft will benefit the military and civilian aviation industries if engine problems can be overcome, military experts said.

Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun confirmed last week it is developing the Y-20 military transport aircraft as part of the People's Liberation Army's modernisation drive and for service in humanitarian and disaster-relief efforts.

Three days earlier, on December 24, several photographs believed to be showing China's first domestically produced heavy-lift military transport plane were posted on a mainland website by military enthusiasts. The aircraft bears a striking resemblance to the US Air Force's C-17 transporter, built by Boeing, but appears to be of a size that might fit somewhere between the C-17 and the Airbus A400M.

As such, it appears that the Y-20 will be wide enough to accommodate most large PLA combat and support vehicles, including its Type 99 series tanks, which weigh close to 55 tonnes.

Yang did not say when the Y-20 would be ready for service, only saying that "the research and development of the large transport aircraft is going forward as planned".

The photographs on the Chaoda Story Land website, a forum for military enthusiasts, were purportedly taken from long range at Xian Aircraft's Yanliang airfield in Shaanxi.

Xian Aircraft Industry is a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the leading military aircraft maker.

Some features of the new transporter can be identified despite the poor quality of the images. It is powered by four jet engines that appear to be Russian Soloviev D-30KU engines, used on Russian Ilyushin Il-62M and Tupolev TU-154M airliners and the Ilyushin Il-76MD, a multi-purpose, four-engine strategic airlifter.

The PLA Air Force operates a small fleet of Russian-made Il-76 transporters powered by the D-30KU engine.

But Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canadian-based Kanwa Defence Review, said the Y-20 would not use D-30KU engines when development and research was completed.

He said the D-30KU was a noisy fuel-guzzler and even the Russians were abandoning it. China was likely to use a homegrown aircraft engine such as the CJ-1000A displayed at the Zhuhai air show in November, he said.

"I have no idea about the Chinese engines that will be used by the Y-20 as it is still being developed," Chang said. "But it will be a significant jump for China's aviation industry if it successfully develops the Y-20, especially for its larger aircraft projects which can be used for both military and civilian purposes."

Beijing-based military expert Li Jie said the Y-20 project was still in its early days.

"Like other aircraft projects, the Y-20 project is still facing the same problem - engines," he said. "But if we overcome such a knotty problem, the PLA's ability to project military force on the battlefield or send relief materials to disaster-hit areas would definitely be strengthened."


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Y-20 Transport Emerges

Posted by Bill Sweetman 9:01 AM on Dec 26, 2012
It was hardly on the level of the J-20's appearance two years ago, but the advent of the Xian J-20 transport over the Christmas holidays was nonetheless important. If nothing else, it's the third all-new Chinese military aircraft to emerge in two years, a pace of innovation unknown since the Cold War. It is also by far the largest indigenously developed Chinese aircraft.





A lot of people are pointing out that the Y-20 looks a lot like most other military jet cargo aircraft, as indeed it does, because few people so far have successfully diverted from the formula that Lockheed-Georgia used with the C-141.

The aircraft is roughly the size of the Il-76 and uses the same engines for now (Saturn D-30KPs, also imported for the H-6K bomber). It is widely predicted that the production version will have a Chinese-produced high-bypass-ratio engine. Other significant details are yet to be revealed, including the design of the landing gear and the high-lift system, which determine the aircraft's ability to use short and soft runways.


Some see the Y-20 as the start of a family of special-purpose variants, including an all-domestic airborne early warning and control aircraft, but a large military transport - relatively heavy and draggy - is not really an optimized platform for AEW. The Soviets used the Il-76 because it was the best they had.


So what is the strategic mission for the Y-20? The US developed large airlifters primarily for the reinforcement of Europe, secondly for long-range strategic interventions. Russia developed them (along with a family of air-droppable vehicles) because of a strong belief in the power of airborne combined-armed forces. Some nations, more recently, have acquired them for a mix of missions, ranging from armed intervention to operations other than war - non-combatant evacuations and humanitarian/disaster relief. Exactly what mission mix the PLA has in mind is yet to be revealed.




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Chinese Military - Paratrooper Unit

Rare view of Chinese paratroopers. which are capable of fast attack and depoyment of elite troops and light tanks and military vehicles

[Ryan Ruck]

China’s Y-20 Transport Conducts Maiden Flight

January 28, 2013

China has conducted the maiden flight of the Xian Y-20 strategic transport from the Yanlian airbase.

Footage on Chinese state television shows the four-engined aircraft, bearing number 20001, taking off, landing, and taxiing. It does not appear to have retracted its landing gear during the flight, a common practice on maiden flights.

Official Chinese news agency Xinhua also posted images of the first flight.

The news comes just weeks after Beijing officially confirmed that it is developing the aircraft, following the emergence of images on Chinese defence sites during the last week of 2012.

"We are developing large transport aircraft on our own to improve the capability of air transport," China's defence ministry said.

"The advanced long-range carrier is being developed to serve the military modernisation drive, as well as to meet demands in disaster relief work and humanitarian aid in emergency situations."

The PLAAF now operates a fleet of 20 Ilyushin Il-76 strategic transports, with another 30 on order.

The Y-20: China Aviation Milestone Means New Power Projection

January 28, 2013

Escorted by a J-15 fighter and numbered “20001,” China’s domestically-produced Y-20 transport aircraft successfully completed its maiden flight on Jan. 26 at the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)’s China Flight Test Establishment in Sha’anxi province, remaining airborne for an hour , according to state-run media reports. In an example of selective transparency to boost pride at home and credibility abroad, domestic media were rapidly notified of the Y-20’s test flight (see CCTV broadcast here and here) and Chinese military enthusiasts are energetically welcoming the news.

“First we heard about the test flight of the J-31 stealth fighter jet, then the landing and takeoff of the J-15 on our aircraft carrier, and now we embrace the birth of the Y-20,” the state-run English-language China Daily quoted Qu Renming, a white-collar worker in Beijing, as saying. “The only concern for military fans is when can the Y-20 use our domestically developed engine and enter into service.”

The Y-20’s first flight suggests that China is on the way to joining the U.S., Russia and Ukraine as the fourth nation to independently develop and fly a heavy military transport aircraft. Its development represents a meaningful step toward China being able to develop a more robust ability to project aerial power, both in the form of air transport and aerial refueling. It also offers a large airframe that could eventually provide a foundation for building airborne early warning aircraft and large air tankers capable of supporting long-range strike fighters. Finally, the Y-20 transport could eventually be exported to friendly nations, and perhaps beyond if AVIC can build and sell it for less than the cost of competitors such as the Russian IL-76. The PLAAF currently operates 20 IL-76s, and has reportedly ordered 30 more.

Aircraft Design and Construction Advances

The Y-20 is the third example of a new trend in which AVIC has moved beyond cloning and copying and can now successfully meld aspects of multiple foreign airframes (and technical advice) with domestic designs and improved, domestically-manufactured systems. The J-20 and J-31 were the first two Chinese-made aircraft to make this leap, and now the Y-20 has done so as well.

The Y-20 differs clearly from other heavy transport aircraft like Russia’s Il-76, America’s C-5 and C-17, and Europe’s A400M in fuselage shape, wheels and flap actuators. PLA experts quoted in a story appearing on the English-language website of the People’s Daily claim that the Y-20 outperforms Russia’s Il-76 and say it boasts “Chinese characteristics in supercritical airfoils, integrated avionics, cabin equipment, composite materials and their processing.” The experts say the plane has three aircrew, a 15-meter height and 47-meter fuselage length, a 66-ton maximum load capacity and a maximum takeoff weight of just over 200 tons. Its capacious cargo hold can “carry the vast majority of combat and support vehicles of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA),” including the PLA’s heaviest tank, the 58-ton Type-99A2. It can transport them even to underdeveloped “airstrips” thanks to its “strong adaptability to [substandard] take-off and landing fields.” This suggests the PLA has carefully noted the ability of the U.S. C-17 to land on rough dirt airstrips and serve forward combat bases in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, two researchers at China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center asserted in 2007 that a “large transport aircraft” with approximately these specifications would have “performance superior to [that of the] IL-76.” Coupled with Xinhua’s 2008 announcement that one-third of China’s initial 60 billion yuan ($9.6 billion) investment in its state-prioritized large aircraft program would be for military transport aircraft, and a CCTV-7 report that the Y-20 would be unveiled by the end of 2009, this suggests that the Y-20’s development was long-planned. Certainly it is a long-term program.

“If everything goes well, the Y-20 will have to undergo a minimum-three-year-long flight test and a minimum-five-year-long comprehensive test period,” the PLA experts cited on the People’s Daily website state. “Therefore, 2017 is the earliest date by which the PLA Air Force will have home-made large transport aircraft.” This would suggest that the 2017-20 period will see the PLA potentially taking simultaneous large-scale deliveries of the Y-20, as well as fighter jets like the J-20, and possibly the J-31, the J-15 and J-16.

Driving Additional Jet Engine Investment

The Y-20’s capabilities are reportedly close to those of Russia’s Il-476, with one important exception: The Y-20’s Russian D-30KP2 engines lack the thrust and efficiency of the Il-476’s PS-90A76 turbofans. In a sign that even China’s aviation Achilles’ heel – engines – is now receiving major resources, China is developing a high-thrust turbofan called the WS-20 to fill this role as part of a major aeroengine resource and technology push. While progress will likely take time, reports suggest China could invest up to 300 billion yuan ($49 billion) in jet engine development by 2035. Acquisition of foreign technology and breakthroughs in recruiting foreign experts could help accelerate China’s jet engine development.

Financial considerations and a belief that Chinese jet engine makers are behind the Russian technical curve will likely motivate Russia to permit transfers of additional jet engines over the next 2-3 years despite the significant risk AVIC will reverse engineer key portions, if not the entire powerplant. Meanwhile, Ukrainian engineers are already readily available, and their Russian counterparts may become increasingly so as Russia moves its aviation contractor headquarters from prime city real estate near aging engineers’ apartments to Zhukovsky Airfield, which lies 45 km from downtown Moscow and is a long commute even under the best of circumstances given the capital’s congested roads.

Future Directions

The last two years have yielded a growing body of evidence that China is enjoying significant success in simultaneously managing multiple advanced aircraft programs. At present, no other nation can—or does—allocate so many personnel and financial resources so rapidly toward achieving national strategic goals.

That said, the Chinese aerospace sector also has a number of key weaknesses that will be exposed if continuing budget increases fail to yield commensurate technical breakthroughs in critical unproven areas, including aeroengines, electronics and avionics.

So far, by exploiting open source study, commercial joint ventures with tech transfer and industrial espionage, China has been able to leapfrog and save costs and time as it closes its technical gap with advanced aerospace power such as the U.S., Russia and certain European countries.

Yet the closer China comes in capability to other advanced aviation powers, the less of a follower’s advantage it will have, raising questions about how much Chinese aerospace expenditures will need to rise in order to have a chance of creating a comprehensive global aerospace power, as opposed to one that makes snazzy airframes, but struggles with critical subsystems such as the engines and electronics. To boot, getting the hardware right is only part of the challenge, since being able to employ it effectively will require millions of man-hours invested in maintenance, training and learning how to integrate platforms with each other to operate in a way that the whole is more powerful than the sum of the parts.

In short, the Y-20 is a point of national pride and a substantial breakthrough for China’s large aircraft programs, but to begin thinking of it as a true military advancement, we need to see a Y-20 undertake a long flight with heavy cargo, then turn around and do the same thing on a return flight. Proof of an aircraft’s reliability and effectiveness lies in real objectives successfully achieved under real world conditions. A long and interesting road lies ahead for the Y-20.

Some video and pictures...

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Chinese Y-20 Military Transport Aircraft

7:38 PM MJ Qamar No comments

New set of images of the Chinese Y-20 Military Transport Aircraft

Posted in: China,Peoples Liberation Army Air Force,Transport Aircraft

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China’s Giant Transport Plane Takes Flight

• By David Axe
• 01.28.13
• 11:00 AM

The Chinese military’s first homegrown long-range transport plane has flown for the first time, extending Beijing’s impressive record of new warplane development.

But the Xian Y-20 (“Y” for Yun, meaning “transport”), roughly in the same class as the U.S. C-17 or the Russian Il-76, is probably still a long way from being fully operational — to say nothing of it being militarily effective. A lack of custom engines limits the new plane’s potential.

State-owned China Central Television depicted the four-engine jet transport taking off from what was probably the military airfield in Yanliang, central China, home of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force testing establishment. The Y-20, still wearing only its yellow primer paint, flew what appeared to be a short test flight and landed in front of a crowd waving Chinese flags. It seems the transport’s landing gear stayed down for the entire sortie — a standard precaution in early tests of new planes.

“The successful maiden flight of Yun-20 is significant in promoting China’s economic and national defense buildup as well as bettering its emergency handling such as disaster relief and humanitarian aid,” the government-run Xinhua news service announced Saturday.

Development of the new transport began no later than 2005, and was possibly spurred in part by the massive earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Sichuan in 2008. In the disaster’s aftermath, the PLAAF — which has long favored jet fighters over more mundane support aircraft — was able to deploy only a handful of small cargo planes carrying relief supplies. The U.S., by contrast, sent in two Boeing C-17s — welcome assistance but also embarrassing for the Chinese Communist Party.

The Y-20 is the latest in a chain of new Chinese airplanes. Since late 2010 Beijing has debuted two stealth fighter prototypes; a new carrier-based naval fighter; plus radar and patrol planes, two gunship helicopters and, now, a heavyweight cargo plane at least as capacious as Russia’s workhorse Il-76, which China also possesses and which seems to provide the basis of the Y-20′s design.

Beijing may also have acquired some of the C-17′s blueprints from a spy working at Boeing.

The Y-20 first appeared in blurry snapshots posted to Party-friendly Chinese Internet forums in December — Beijing’s standard procedure for rolling out major new prototype weapons. A series of overhead images provided by U.S. commercial satellite operator GeoEye in early January provided more detail. In contrast to the high degree of official secrecy surrounding other new warplanes, Beijing promptly announced the Y-20′s existence — a move that trade magazine Flightglobal called “remarkable.”

As with China’s other new warplanes, the Y-20 prototype is apparently fitted with older, Russian-made engines rather than purpose-designed motors. A lack of suitable powerplants has slowed progress on many of the new planes. The Y-20′s current D-30 engines are low-bypass models better suited for supersonic fighters than an efficient, slow-flying cargo hauler. Beijing has poured billions of dollars into developing new engines but so far has little to show for it.

“The giant aircraft will continue to undergo experiments and test flights as scheduled,” Xinhua said of the Y-20. But that doesn’t mean the new transport is close to being ready for frontline use.

China Debuts Homegrown C-17 Clone

by Ward Carroll on January 28, 2013



The Chinese Air Force launched the Y-20 for the first time on Saturday (as reported by AFP), an event the Chinese government press heralded as “a significant milestone” that would “enhance … global power projection.”

The Y-20 looks a lot like the Boeing-built C-17 used by the U.S. Air Force, but critics say it falls short of the Globemaster III’s performance in a number of respects. Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canadian-based Kanwa Defense Review, said that the Y-20 was technologically inferior to other military transport planes. True figures for the Y-20’s maximum load and flying range were likely to be lower than those cited in state media due to the plane’s reliance on a “very old” Russian-designed engine.

“(The engine’s) oil consumption is very bad, it wastes a lot of fuel,” he said, pointing out that because of noise some developed countries have banned aircraft using it from landing, threatening its potential appearance at European air shows. (And that reality wouldn’t help it’s foreign military sales effort or international reputation.)

Chang also noted that the C-17’s long-range performance is possible because of the airplane’s composite materials, the manufacture of which the Chinese have struggled with to date. And the Y-20 was likely to take at least another five years to enter operational service, he added.

But the Chinese only want to talk about capabilites. The Y-20 has a maximum payload of 66 tons, which it can carry as far as 2,700 miles, the China Daily said, and with 55 tons on board it could fly from western China to Cairo.

It is big enough to hold the heaviest tank used by China’s army, the paper added, quoting a military expert as saying that “the heavy air freighters will ensure that we are able to safeguard our interests overseas.”

The Y-20 also allows the Chinese to end their dependence on Russian-made Il-76s for their transport needs.

[vector7]

PLA building fleet of 100 large transport aircraft

• Staff Reporter
• 2014-10-20
• 17:10 (GMT+8)

China's Xian Y-20 large transportation aircraft. (Internet photo)

China is building a fleet of a hundred large transport aircraft that will be able to deploy troops all around the world, according to a Russian military expert.

In an article published Oct. 16 on the Russian Council website, Vasily Kashin, a China expert at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, says that the People's Liberation Army hopes to complete the project by 2020.

To reach that goal, China is in the process of acquiring Il-76 multi-purpose four-engine strategic airlifters and Il-78 four-engined aerial refueling tankers from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, and is also developing its own Xian Y-20 large military transport aircraft.

According to Kashin, the quality of China's military technology has reached a new level, such that the PLA is now a modernized force capable of fighting a technically advanced war. The new generation PLA has a blue-water navy and maritime force capable of operating across the deep waters of open oceans as well as a powerful strategic air force, he wrote.

The project is said to be part of a series of major programs designed to complete China's transformation into a modern military power. One of the programs aims to build an army that can win wars through superior information technology by 2050. To this end, the PLA set a goal back in 2000 for 60% of all new recruits to be university graduates, though by 2009 the number had barely passed 30%. To entice more qualified soldiers, the PLA has also introduced comprehensive insurance schemes and higher compensation that has seen monthly salaries more than double between 2006 and 2011 to around US$840 a month.

Beijing is also reportedly re-adjusting the structure of the Chinese armed forces, with the intention of gradually phasing out army and air force regiments and divisions. The PLA's ground force marks up about 1.6 million of the PLA's total 2.29 million personnel, though the army's influence has been falling in recent years as more attention is being paid to the navy and air force.

Combat training now focuses primarily on the use of computerized systems for joint operations, and a greater emphasis has been placed on precision weapons such as 122mm artillery and 155mm extended range guided munitions. Air force pilots are also increasing their training hours by an average of 200 hours a year and focusing on their abilities to make decisions without ground support.
Further, China has developed into a major arms dealer, the report said, engaging in technological cooperation with countries such as Pakistan. Chinese weapons and systems such as the 155mm PLZ-45 self-propelled howitzer are also advanced enough to enter competitive markets such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and other Middle Eastern countries. Chinese anti-satellite weapons programs have also improved sufficiently to comparable to world leaders, the report added.

China is the second country in the world after the US to develop a warship equipped with a self-built multi-purpose weapons system. The Type 052D destroyer, currently undergoing sea trials, can launch various types of guided wapons such as anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship missiles and anti-submarine missiles, as well as cruise missiles against ground targets. China is also the only country in the world with two fifth-generation fighter projects in place, with both jets currently in the test-flight phase.

Additonally, the China is building five Type 094 ballistic missile submarines equipped with JL-2 intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The PLA has already deployed 35 DF-31A long-range road-mobile ICBMs and still has multiple warheads in development.

On the intelligence front, China is combining traditional electronic warfare with cyber warfare. The Fourth Department of the PLA's General Staff Headquarters Department has been tasked with four main goals: expand staff, improve technological progress, establish more centers, and train more information warfare experts. Telecommunications and electronic intelligence is controlled by the Third Department of the PLA's General Staff Headquarters Department, which has a total of about 130,000 staff.

China has already commissioned its first air craft carrier, the Liaoning, and is in the process of building two more. In the future, the PLA also intends to develop a carrier equipped with an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System capable of rivaling that of the US Navy.

Beijing has found it necessary to ramp up and modernize the PLA's capabilities due to ongoing tensions over territorial disputes, particularly with Japan in the East China Sea and the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, the report said, as well as ongoing concerns stemming from America's return to Asia strategy. Though China has significantly bolstered its military capabilities, serious conflict has been avoided thus far despite an obvious push by Beijing to increase its presence in disputed regions, the report added.

[Ryan Ruck]

Why the US Sent a C-17 to a Chinese Air Show Despite Concerns Inside the Pentagon

November 11, 2014

The U.S. military sent a giant C-17 cargo plane to an air show in China this week as a way to strengthen its relationship with the People’s Liberation Army there, despite fears among security and policy experts that doing so puts American technology secrets in jeopardy and also risks angering an important Asia ally.

The decision to send a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III to the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition at the Zhuhai Jinwan airport starting Tuesday is fraught for a number of reasons, defense and security officials told Defense One, noting that President Barack Obama’s arrival in the region this week to help bolster ties with Beijing points up how political factors may have outweighed security, optical and even legal concerns.

The reasons against sending the plane seemed to policy and security officials to have been enumerable. The American military jet will be participating in the air show with just two other foreign militaries in addition to China: the United Arab Emirates and Russia - with which the U.S. military severed ties after Russia’s annexation of Crimea this spring .

In the meantime, to some, the U.S. military’s participation in the air show is a mark of hypocrisy: Last week, the U.S. denied ally South Korea the ability to demonstrate a Korean jet at the same air show because it possesses U.S. technology and U.S. security officials said demonstrating that plane would be in violation of international agreements.

And at a cost of at least $350,000 to attend the air show, some officials inside the U.S. government raised questions about why the C-17 jet, along with about 15 U.S. Air Force personnel, should participate at all.

“It was just bad idea after bad idea,” said one government official.

But despite the myriad concerns, Pentagon officials recognized they were in a tight spot and signed off on the plan late Friday to avoid risking political fallout just as the president’s plane was about to touch down in Beijing.

The decision to send the C-17 to the air show, which begins Tuesday, appeared to originate from U.S. Pacific Air Forces, or PACAF, as a way to engage the Chinese and strengthen the relationship between the two militaries. The idea was said to have been the brainchild of senior Air Force leaders in Washington and Hawaii, but few government officials in Washington knew about it until just weeks ago. One defense official joked that the event was a “GOBI” – a “General Officer Bright Idea” – because it went forward despite the mounting concerns with the plan.

Given the cost, the political optics and what some officials termed a borderline legal justification for participating, a variety of defense officials demurred when asked about the jet participating in the air show. The plan was considered such an “ugly baby” within the U.S. military that no department or agency seemed to want to take responsibility for it. Over the course of last week, Pacific Air Forces referred questions to the U.S. Air Force at the Pentagon; the Air Force referred questions to U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. The public affairs office at the Pentagon’s Office of the Secretary of Defense referred questions back to Pacific Air Forces, also in Hawaii. Ultimately a spokesman for the Air Force acknowledged the C-17’s participation in the show, saying it was coming “at the request of the government of China.”

Lt. Col. Christopher Karns, media operations chief for the U.S. Air Force at the Pentagon, said the C-17’s visit to the air show has a humanitarian assistance aspect to it, citing a statistic that nearly 70 percent of the world’s natural disasters occur in the region.

“Sending the C-17 builds trust and strengthens partnerships with China and Asia-Pacific nations,” he said. “The C-17 signals the Air Force’s capability to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief through the Asia-Pacific region and across the globe,” he said in an email.

Justifying its participation in the air show by framing it as a humanitarian relief operation was significant because “mil-to-mil” engagement with the Chinese is extremely limited based on a law passed in 2000. Indeed, provisions of the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act prevent the U.S. from certain kinds of sharing or demonstrating military technology with the Chinese. But there is one exception: when humanitarian relief operations are involved. Policy officials concerned that the C-17 visit to the air show have expressed doubt that the true purpose of the C-17’s presence at the air show could be truly justified by being related to a humanitarian operation.

There is also political risk in the decision to send the plane as well since it came after last week’s decision to prevent South Korea from sending a Korean-made T-50 jet to the same air show. The South Korean T-50 is a training plane that incorporates American fighter technology that is similar to some of what is found on an American F-16 fighter. U.S. regulations prevent allies from sharing certain “munitions technology” or military capabilities and U.S. officials told the Republic of Korea they could not take the jet to the same Chinese air show. That ruling angered Seoul earlier this month, making the U.S. decision to send its own jet to the same air show appear that much worse to the South Koreans.

U.S. officials said that despite the action against South Korea, the decision to send the American jet to China was made carefully.

“Upon careful review of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations requirements and an assessment of the opportunity to strengthen engagement and ties with China, the State Department and the Office of the Secretary of Defense approved the participation of the C-17 at the [China air show],” a DoD official said in a statement to Defense One.

The Pentagon has long been suspicious of China and the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, which U.S. officials have accused of lacking transparency and stealing military secrets from the U.S.

Despite those concerns, many U.S. officials think engaging with the Chinese military in the form of information exchanges or air shows or official visits are all worth it because they help build trust and, theoretically, a reciprocal relationship in which one military shows off its capability in return for more transparency from the other side. But many U.S. government officials said that when it comes to reciprocity, the Chinese never deliver.

Some members of Congress agree. Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., who has voiced his concerns on this issue in the past, said U.S. officials justify such exchanges as building relationships, but there’s little evidence the strategy ever pays off.

“It should be no surprise to us when the Chinese agree to attend the prestigious RIMPAC exercise or host a C-17 at their airshow, but we let ourselves interpret these actions as the basis for a new level of cooperation,” Forbes told Defense One in a statement by email, referring to the C-17 visit as well as a large Pacific military exercise in which the Chinese participated this year. “There is also no indication that more engagement has helped to shape Beijing’s behavior. As we have increased our mil-mil outreach in the last 18 months, China has only turned more coercive and reckless.”

Forbes, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said it’s important to “continue to engage” the PLA but there should be “clear guidance” across the Defense Department to make sure a set of objectives are being met.

There are regular reminders of the risk involved with the Chinese, they say. In August, a Chinese man was indicted for assisting two China-based hackers and other defense contractors to steal data on military jets, including Boeing’s C-17. And Su Bin, a Chinese national who owned a Chinese aviation firm, was indicted after first being arrested in June in Canada. He apparently spent years stealing secrets from Boeing, but it was unclear how he did so, according to The New York Times. There was no indication that the Chinese government was involved.

The U.S.-China military relationship is marked by ups and downs. Also in August, a Chinese air commander directed a Chinese jet to harass an American spy plane operating over international waters, “buzzing” the American jet and conducting what’s known as a barrel roll around it in an incident that could have caused a serious air crash.

Security and military experts fear that even just bringing the C-17 jet into China for the air show runs the risk that the Chinese could exploit its visit on the tarmac or inside a hangar at the air show by photographing the inside of the plane or using other technology that would give the PLA the upper hand as it develops its own plane.

In the past, just sending a U.S. jet into China would require a presidential waiver. Four years ago, President Obama loosened sanctions the U.S. imposed on China after the 1989 Tiananman massacre to allow “de-militarized” C-130 planes in the region to help in the cleaning up of oil spills. Simply refueling those planes inside China required the White House to give the nod to the operation.

The C-17, a stalwart air platform for the U.S. military, is not considered to be at the forefront of American military technology. But it is nonetheless equipped with sensitive equipment, including technology designed to defend the plane against attack that some believe could be extremely useful to the Chinese.

Typically, air show costs would be considered a public relations event and therefore paid for and approved by public affairs officials. But in this case, Pacific Air Forces will bear the cost of the mission – said to be at least $350,000 — to the air show and pay for it out of “operations and maintenance” funds, or so-called O&M funding.

Funding it that way, and terming the mission by framing it as relating to humanitarian relief, may allow Pacific Air Forces to justify the event. Unlike fighter, bomber or reconnaissance aircraft, cargo aircraft like the C-17 and Lockheed Martin-made C-130 are considered more than warplanes and are seen as a symbol of American support and compassion since they are often used to deliver humanitarian support after devastating natural disasters.

In May 2008, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent two Air Force C-17s loaded with 200,000 pounds of relief supplies to central China after a devastating earthquake struck the region.

In January 2013, China rolled out the Y-20, a massive four-engine cargo that closely resembles the C-17. However the plane’s jet engines appear much smaller than the massive Pratt & Whitney power plants on the C-17 and experts say it is inferior to the American-made plane.

Even though the U.S. has had little military-to-military cooperation with Russia over the years, the Air Force has looked for partnering opportunities with their Russian counterparts in recent years.

The Air Force took a C-17 to the Moscow International Aviation and Space Salon in 2007. Now, despite what some have termed the beginning of a new Cold War with Russia and the severing of nearly all military-to-military ties, the U.S. and Russia have planes sitting side-by-side on a tarmac inside China.

“We’ve been canceling everything with Russia, and now we’re going to be within spitting distance of them,” said a government official.