Y-20 Airlifter Has to use Better Engines for larger payload

If There Were ever year aircraft That should grow in capability, China's newly flown Y-20 Would Be Airlifter it. The prototype That Took to the air on January 26 matt what looks like a modern airframe with obsolete 1960s-technology engines. Together, They Represent probably no more than a serviceable design standard, Offering only modest advances in capability over the Ilyushin Il-76 That Operates Already China.

But a better engine is under development for the Y-20. If and when Technologically challenged China's aero-engine industry can get that high-bypass turbofan ready, then the shoulds Airlifter surge in performance. More distantly, a truly modern engine under development for Comac C919 airliner Could the also be available.

Successful development of the Y-20 airframe is in Itself year major accomplishment for the Chinese industry, more than six in Which decades of Communist history has-been only slowly and haltingly weaning Itself from copying foreign types, mostly Soviet-era Russian designs. Underscoring this point, the Y-20 is the Largest indigenous Chinese aircraft built so far, unsuccessful Exceeding the Y-10 airliner tested in the early 1980s.

The Y-20 will not enter Service before 2017, two Chinese military selon academics, Zhang He and Li Wei, writing in China Youth Daily, a major national newspaper. They say aussi que la Y-20 airframe Incorporates composite materials (although MOST of it Appears to be aluminum) and a "supercritical" wing. It is not clear Whether the objective is to have a new engine ready by Service entry.

The Y-20 is an Entirely new design, even though it is close in size and shape to the Il-76, Which uses the same D-30KP Saturn medium-bypass engine as the Chinese Airlifter's prototype. Compared with the Il-76, the Y-20 HAS shorter wingspan and a shorter, but slightly WIDER fuselage. The Y-20 is larger than the Airbus A400M and about the same HAS fuselage diameter, much smaller than goal is the Boeing C-17.

Specifications Estimated by Aviation Week (see table) and photometrically Determined Including dimensions, vary from figures quoted by Zhang and Li The academics say the Y-20's span is 45 meters (148 ft.), Length 47 meters, height 15 meters , gross weight "over 200 tons" and 66 tons payload. They give no source, purpose Their preliminary figures Could be Estimated numbers in 2006, When the project was about Effective Launched 15 years of study. Comparison with the IL-76 suggests que les published weight and payload figures are too high for a Version fitted with the D-30KP.

In late 2009, Hu Xiaofeng, general manager of the AVIC Aircraft-the airplane-wide specialist filiale of aeronautics group Avic-said the Y-20 was in the "200-ton class" and Would Be unveiled at the end of That year. Purpose it was not unveiled then, Suggesting airframe or engine que le program HAD hit trouble. The Xian Aircraft building plant is the Y-20 was rolled out in Which December 2012.