Russian media "Izvestia" said that the Chinese Air Force Y-20 family development progress is developing rapidly, and now the Y-20 transport aircraft has become the main force of China's strategic transport aircraft, and is replacing the original Russian-made Il-76 strategic transport aircraft. In the crucial large-scale military aviation, China is now also seeking to use more advanced domestic aviation to replace The original Russian engine and the Russian imitation engine products.
It is expected that in the future, the total number of Yun-20 series aircraft installed by the Chinese Air Force will reach the highest or will reach 300, which will be more than double the size of russia's strategic transport fleet and will also exceed the 280 us strategic transport aircraft force.
The Yun-20 is a new generation of domestic long-range strategic transport aircraft of the People's Liberation Army led by Xifei, which is of great significance to the Chinese Air Force, after all, there were many shortcomings in the strategic transport aircraft of the Chinese Air Force before. In the early days, more than 20 Il-76s were found to be leaked from Russia, although it solved the problem of China's large strategic transport aircraft, but the number was still too small, and the performance was not enough. In the Wenchuan earthquake, the inadequacy of the PLA air transport force was highlighted, and the PLA transport force once needed to second civilian aircraft to transport personnel and materials, which was a significant shortcoming in wartime and also limited China's long-range strategic delivery capabilities.
Therefore, the follow-up is the advent of the Y-20 series of strategic transport aircraft. The early Y-20 series strategic transport aircraft had a big gap in performance with the AMERICAN-made C-17 and C-5 series strategic transport aircraft, especially the engine. Of course, it is also understandable that the advent of the Yun-20 must first solve the problem of domestic strategic transport aircraft, as for the problem of strong performance, it is a matter of later development.
Yun 20 in the field of hangfa, the use of Russia provided D-30KP2 engine, Yun 20 equipped with 4 engines, this engine can only be said to be the upper middle level, the maximum take-off weight of 220 tons of yun 20, the power of the engine is still insufficient problem, this engine single thrust is only 12.5 tons, in Russia and the United States active advanced large strategic transport aircraft belongs to the bottom level. Russia's latest Il-76 engine PS-90A3, a single thrust of 15.6 tons, not to mention the American C-17 engine F117-PW-100, a single thrust of 17.9 tons such a monster. Because of the lag in the performance of this engine, it limits the embodiment and play of the integrity of the Y-20 transport aircraft, coupled with China's lack of experience in large-scale military aviation design, and dependence on Russia, various factors have determined that China must rely on itself to develop its own advanced military large aviation.
First of all, China has carried out localization imitation and improvement of the D-30KP2 engine, through the mapping of Russian engine technology and the design experience of domestic technical personnel, the localization model of the D-30KP2 engine is turbofan 18, and the thrust of this engine is increased to 13.2 tons in the D-30KP2 engine, which is 0.3 tons lighter and the fuel consumption is also 20% lower. It can be said that the turbofan 18 has improved slightly compared to the D-30KP2 engine, but it is far from enough for us.
Therefore, China has developed a more advanced turbofan 20 large thrust engine, which is based on the domestic turbofan 10 engine, the development of a large culvert than turbofan engine, by the 112 factory 606 personally developed, has now entered the testing stage, a few days ago also appeared Yun 20 and oil 20 in the same frame debut, replaced by turbofan 20 engine test screen. Compared with the turbofan 18, the performance of the turbofan 20 is significantly improved, and the thrust of the turbofan 20 engine can reach the 16-ton level, which can be said to be a huge performance improvement. According to the disclosure of the chief division of the Yun-20, the problem of China's domestic engines has been basically solved, and the Yun-20 has begun to gradually replace the "Chinese heart".
After the replacement of the Chinese heart, the performance of the Y-20 can be restored to the original design indicators, and the aircraft's range increase, fuel consumption is less, and the load capacity is increased, which can be said to improve the comprehensive performance of the aircraft. There is a bigger problem that the output of the Y-20 will be greatly improved, after all, the D-30KP2 engine supplied by Russia in the early days is limited, and this amount has to be "shared" with the Bomber 6 bomber, so the output cannot go up at all. Now with the maturity of domestic engine performance, the key factors restricting production will be completely removed, coupled with the construction of the new Yun 20 production line, the output of today's Yun 20 can be described as a straight rise.
It is expected that the total output of the future Y-20 transport aircraft and its derivative tankers and early warning aircraft can reach about 300, and it can be said that for a long time to come, the Y-20 transport aircraft family will continue to produce and serve as the main model of the Air Force, which will once and for all completely solve the shortcomings of the Lack of advanced strategic transport aircraft in the Chinese Air Force.