GoldenDragonWhat are the costs of the Y-8s and Y-12s compared to their Western and Eastern counterparts? I assume they would be much much cheaper.
Let’s see, Srbin, looking up some numbers:
The base model export Y-12 is listed as low as $2m. Though it would be more expensive for the civilian market (1).
The Canadian Aerospace Group(1) ordered 50 Y-12s from Harbin with an option for 150 more. This is the Twin Panda with Canadian avionics, fittings and internal furnishing. I think they are selling it at around $3m
A comparable aircraft would be the Beech 1900 “Twin Otter” series which the “Twin Panda” is supposed to replace. A new B1900D would be around $5-6m IIRC.
The latest Y-8 variant Y-8F600 with P&W engines is supposed around $15m. They’re expecting sales of up to 100.
A comparable plane, and there are no longer many four engined turboprops built brand new, would be the C-130 since An-12 production has already ended.
A new C-130J is about $65m. Both planes have the same carrying capacity of about 20 tons of cargo.
Load aside, there are other areas that the C-130 excel over the Y-8 including short runway and take off from high altitude airstrips like in the Himalayas. Though this is changing with the new P&W engines (2).
So yes, the Chinese turboprops are much cheaper. And because they’re cheap, they sell very well to smaller world air forces like Peru, Zambia, etc. They’re pretty robust and maintainable.
But with the really BIG markets like the Western civilian carrier market, they need Western companies like CAG and P&W to vouch for them. Though this might change over time because there are lots of Y-12s and Y-8s in smaller passenger and good transport lines in Nepal, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Iran and all over Africa.
GD’s footnotes:
(1)March 31, 1998 No. 76, MARCHI VISIT TO BEIJING REFLECTS CANADA’S EXPANDING PRESENCE IN CHINA:
“Canadian Aerospace Group and the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation, China, signed a contract to purchase the first two Y12 aircraft frames. The contract is part of a Memorandum of Agreement to purchase a total of 50 Y12 aircraft airframes in three years, with an option for an additional 150. The 19-seat regional aircraft will be manufactured in Harbin, China and sent to Canada for completion and sale by Panda Aircraft Corporation, a subsidiary of Canadian Aerospace Group located in North Bay, Ontario. Under the terms of this agreement, Canada will provide value-added manufacturing and equipment. Sikorsky Aircraft and Pratt & Whitney will also be partners in this project. The total commercial benefits derived from this deal for both Canada and China are expected to exceed $800 million over the next ten years.”
(2) China Picks Pratt To Power Y8F600 Transport (Nov. 7)
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/produit/12613_us.html
“Fitted with the PW150B, Y8F600 will offer improved take-off performance at “hot and high” airports and high altitude cruise performance, extended engine service lives, and lower engine operating and maintenance costs. In addition, noise levels will be reduced and meet stringent airport noise restrictions. The Y8F600 will also be fitted with modern industry standard civil cargo handling systems. With aircraft MTOW increased to 65 tonnes, the Y-8F600 will have broad market appeal and sales of more than 100 aircraft is expected.”
GoldenDragonThe Sri Lankan Air Force flies both the Y-12 and Y-8.
Two great pictures from Rogier Westerhuis. Visit his site for more SLAF pictures!
GoldenDragonHere’s one of the Y-8X escorted by F-16B, I believe the Lawn Dart is ROKAF.
GoldenDragonOur friend the FC-1 mockup and veteran members of the aviation industry being serenaded on TV.
GoldenDragonFrom the military standpoint, the most interesting projects involving the Y-8 are the airborne radar and electronic warfare versions.
There are many projects including several AWACS ones. There is a Y-8X Maritime Patrol version that has been noticed by Japanese, Korean and US forces in the Western Pacific.
GoldenDragonThe Y-8 is probably China’s most experimented with design. Originally based on the An-12, it forms the basis for a dozen different models and types. Very much like the MiG-21 was for the J-7.
Like the J-7, the Y-8’s internal parts are now radically different from the An-12.
GoldenDragonThe Xian Y-7. A twin engined development of the An-24, it has sold better in the civilian market than the military.
The latest rendition of the Y-7, the MA-60 with Pratt and Whitney engines has already sold around 80 machines.
GoldenDragonAmong the best sellers in the liason/utility prop category worldwide is the Y-12.
Sold worldwide to a quite a few air forces such as Namibia, Ethiopia and Zambia pictured below, it also has a large civilian market.
The Y-12 and its predecessor, the Y-11 is produced by Harbin.
GoldenDragonI couldn’t believe my eyes when one of their articles last week (or was it this week?) was entitled..
“Zimbabwe orders FC-1s from Taiwan
HELMOED-RĂ–MER HEITMAN JDW Correspondent
Cape TownZimbabwe has ordered 12 FC-1 air-superiority fighters from the People’s Republic of China (Taiwan) under a US$200 million contract. “
No offense, but Heitman and his editor are a bunch of idiots- use some common sense, these are quite basic mistakes. 🙂
Can you post the whole story? It looks interesting. I always thought the ROC made good aircraft.
GoldenDragonThat’s why i said earlier that the reason is “A bumblebee “couldn’t fly” isn’t due to the law of physics, but due to the extrapolation of “high” Reynolds regime of fluid-dynamics to ultra low Reynolds and other assumptions about how a bee generates lift.”
Lookie here. The common reasons cited for a bumblebee’s design being problematic are:
1) its wings do not have enough area to lift the bee and
2) it is inherently unstable in the air.
Now I’m a layman, but I do know that the most basic aerodynamics law for a fixed-wing craft being able to fly is an area generating enough lift to overcome the inertial weight of the craft. Stability, having the center of lift over the center of gravity, is what allows a craft to remain airborne in a relaxed state (or to glide.) The bumblebee’s design fails on both counts which are the reasons cited for the seeming anomaly of this particular insect being able to fly.
Now, are you saying that fluids dynamics is a THIRD reason why the bumblebee CAN’T fly?
Are you saying that, scientifically, a bumblebee can’t “fly” or remain airborne when taking into account the Reynolds number of air flowing around the bee’s wings under the laws associated with fluid dynamics?
Fluid dynamics is the solution. The small wings that doesn’t have the lift area to sustain flight (per aerodynamics associated with fixed-wing craft) but which warps to create vortices that the bee rides on – similar to a swimmer threading water with his hands (per fluid dynamics.)
Then again, I was a failed electrical engineer in college 🙂 But methinks you are a wee bit too caught up in semantics. Just a wee bit 🙂
GoldenDragonA bumblebee “couldn’t fly” isn’t due to the law of physics, but due to the extrapolation of “high” Reynolds regime of fluid-dynamics to ultra low Reynolds and other assumptions about how a bee generates lift. It obviously can fly as the “existence” proof is observed everyday, therefore laws of nature/hence physics has been proven.
Actually, the bumblebee really “can’t” fly under the laws of aerodynamics that we apply to fix-wing aircraft.
Fluid dynamics is actually a solution to this problem, not a reason for the bumblebee theoretically not being able to fly.
(http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/March00/APS_Wang.hrs.html)
“”The old bumblebee myth simply reflected our poor understanding of unsteady viscous fluid dynamics,” explained Wang, an assistant professor of theoretical and applied mechanics in Cornell’s College of Engineering, in an interview before the APS meeting. “Unlike fixed-wing aircraft with their steady, almost inviscid (without viscosity) flow dynamics, insects fly in a sea of vortices, surrounded by tiny eddies and whirlwinds that are created when they move their wings.”
A vortex created by an airplane usually is a minor nuisance that is left behind in the slipstream.”
Also, in laymen’s term (http://www.charleswood.ca/reading/bumble.php):
“If you were to take a bird carcass, spread out the wings, and throw it, it would glide for a while and come to rest on the ground some distance away. If you were to do the same with a bumblebee carcass, it would tumble end over end and plummet. The difference is that whereas a bird has a nice static aerodynamic design which allows air to flow easily around it, a bumblebee creates turbulance that flips it around. This is the mystery, how is it that a bumblebee can fly without tumbling?
The answer lies in the fact that static (still) objects are governed by different stability laws than dynamic (moving) objects. For example, take a bicycle. As a static object it is not stable (like a tricycle would be). Leave a bicycle standing without support and it will fall over. However, a moving (dynamic) bicycle is perfectly stable, and it is easy to explain why with basic physics. The bumblebee is the same, as a static object it is not aerodynamically stable, it cannot glide. But when it is flapping its wings, we’re into a whole new ball game for how air moves around it.”
The bumblebee planform is inherently unstable but under the laws of aerodynamics applied to bird and fixed-wing aircraft it still isn’t supposed to fly.
Though probably will under those applied to helicopters and gyros.
GoldenDragonBangladesh is trying to unload their MiG-29s because they are considered too expensive to run. Cambodia would fare no better with theirs.
GoldenDragonThey can afford to do both the core issues and the Su upgrades.
And its not just a matter of GCI and AWACS. Those things for example do not improve your weapons compatibility. Your Su armed with only AA-10s for BVR is going to suck against opponents who carry some of the best BVR missiles inventories in the entire world. Taiwan alone carries MICA, Skyswords, AIM-7Ms (which I personally think is still better than the Alamo), and no sh*t—block C AMRAAMs. They’re the first non US customer to have the AIM-120C.
And I wouldn’t the rate Skyswords below the R-77s on the PLAAF MKKs either. But the SKs in particular are nothing but fodder with their R-27s which are the same makes that failed miserably in East Africa. They wouldn’t have a chance in hell with weapons like those.
If the Flankers have any chance over the Strait they would need to move beyond the R-27.
The truth is the PLAAF/PLANAF is simply facing overwhelming quality on this front so their only hope is through numbers. Even without the US, the PLAAF is facing the best air force in Asia in Taiwan (no other on the continent has the bvr array that the ROCAF has.) The PLAAF also has to worry about the second and third best Asian air forces in Japan and South Korea.
So piling on with the US is simply overkill.
But China’s greatest weapon against Taiwan isn’t its military anyways, it’s its economy.
GoldenDragonThe later J-11s are reported to be much lighter than the original SKs.
A babelfished post from the Chinese forum:
“First looked from the weight, import ratio domestic product weight 4 tons. Russia produces is the pure metal fuselage, after but domestic product, China has used very many new compound materials as well as the high strength alloy, therefore the weight greatly reduces moreover the maneuverability and the flight performance are very more than it enhancement. In has is the partner controls as well as the radar pack, originally only can simultaneously attack 2 goals.”
Separate from the new J-11s coming off the production line is the J-11B or indigenized J-11 project.
This was reported by Richard Fisher for the US government (http://www.uscc.gov/researchreports/2000_2003/reports/mair1.htm):
J-11 “Indigenization” This Sukhoi official was also willing to talk about the PLA’s desire to “indigenize” the J-11 with substantial new Chinese-made components, like radar, engines and avionics. He said that the PLA was capable of doing all these things but that it would take the PLA “ten years” to realize an indigenized J-11. But when they did so, he expected that the PLA would also sell this fighter. This new J-11 is expected to carry PLA-made weapons like the SD-10 active-guided AAM, precision attack weapons, radar and a new “glass” cockpit of digitized avionics. The main goal of the program is to make a fighter capable of both fighter and attack missions—something the baseline Su-27SK/J-11 cannot do. This individual also confirmed comments by a Sukhoi official at the 2002 Zhuhai show that Shenyang J-11s have a better production finish than those made at the KnAAPO factory in Komsomolsk.
New Mult-role Su-27SM. A modernized Su-27SK, is the goal of China’s effort to create an indigenized J-11 fighter, but apparently is not using Sukhoi’s ready- made template that was displayed at MAKS.
Surprisingly, Shenyang is not going to Suhkoi to support this program—a matter which vexes them. Sukhoi used MAKS to promote its new program to upgrade the basic Su-27SK. Unlike the new J-11 version which is still in development, Sukhois upgrade package available now would enable multi-role fighter and attack capabilities, provide upgraded radar and avionics, plus a new digital fly-by-wire system which greatly improves aircraft control.
At any rate, China is skipping over the Russian upgrade project (SM) while modernizing the J-11.
As far as not having enough resources, the J-11B program – along with the ongoing J-12 project – is really Shenyang only workload (besides small batch production of late models J-8IIs.) The J-12 is much further into the future and is only in the design and testing stage. AND SAC is a massive company with lots of over capacity.
The WS-10A is developed for the J-11 and is already tested on it. The SD-10 and FD-60 BVRAAMs were tested first and carried by another SAC product, the J-8II.
Extremely doubtful that SAC will ignore integrating these things into the J-11.
That said, the J-11 project has been called a big weight dragging SAC behind in the race with Chengdu.
GoldenDragonActually Sealion, Boeing closing of the MD plant didn’t really hurt it that much.
China, unlike Russia, had basically decoupled its carrier services from its aviation industry. The Chinese airlines don’t wait for Chinese products and it’s the right idea because the Chinese carriers are free market entities more interested in growing themselves than growing the aviation industry.
If there is a good-enough homegrown product, A Chinese airline will look at but if there isn’t, it will buy elsewhere.
As a counterpoint, Aeroflot flies about 110 planes but nearly all of those are Russian makes with only a few Airbuses and Boeings for the long distance routes.
Air China, China Eastern and China Southern are each bigger than Aeroflot and all three operate nearly all Western fleets that are composed, until very recently, mostly of Boeing.
Even the secondary lines like Hainan, Shanghai and Shandong operate mainly Western fleets. The Chinese civil fleet is massive, massive, massive. It was Boeing’s for the taking despite of the MD plant closing.
The real reason for Boeing loss of shares is 1) Airbus is putting out good products and 2) Airbus is less politically sensitive.
One of the worse PR for Boeing in the Chinese market was the US government derailing 737 sales because of the QRS11 chip which every other customer of Boeing gets just fine.
Why should any company buy something that could be placed on embargo at any time? Some Airbuses use the QRS11 too but it is much easier for the European company to guarantee no future interference. Boeing can’t guarantee this because any new technology put into its planes can be considered for embargo in the future.
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