Recently, it was reported that China's air warning model, the Air Police 2000, has attracted much attention. Not only did the Air Police 2000 play a crucial role in China's lack of AWACS aircraft, but its performance also attracted a lot of attention from the Western media. However, despite its obvious importance, China produced only 4 AWACS aircraft of this kind. So, what exactly is causing this? After the facts were revealed, we learned that this was due to the fact that the export of its carrier, the Il-76, was restricted by Russia. However, to this day, experts say that with the Y-20 in service, China has been freed from this constraint. This article will delve into the Air Police 2000 AWACS aircraft and China's AWACS system.
AWACS aircraft has an important position in modern warfare, it is able to monitor a wide range of targets on the battlefield in real time, providing valuable support for commanders' decision-making. Therefore, a key indicator of AWACS is its size, and a larger body usually means longer range, greater radar detection range, and greater command capabilities. AWACS aircraft in the United States and Western countries are often converted into large passenger aircraft, which have excellent range and comfort and are able to provide stable early warning and command functions. In contrast, the Russian AWACS aircraft is modified from the Il-76, although the performance is good, but it is slightly insufficient, including range, radar performance and comfort are inferior to the American model.
China's Air Police 2000 is also a modification of the Il-76, so it also has the disadvantages of shorter range and poor comfort. However, the Air Police 2000 adopted phased array radar technology, which at that time even surpassed similar products in the United States and Russia, making it a world leader in terms of comprehensive performance. However, due to the lack of enough Il-76 for modification in China at that time, only four Air Police 2000s were produced, which was only enough to deploy one in each critical direction.
Subsequently, China developed two new types of early warning aircraft, the Air Police 200 and the Air Police 500, with more than 30 equipped aircraft, and established a relatively complete early warning aircraft system. However, these two aircraft also have some shortcomings of their own, they are modified on the basis of the Y-8 and Y-9 medium transport aircraft, so the range is relatively short. In addition, the Air Police 200 uses balance beam radar, which cannot achieve omnidirectional early warning, while the Air Police 500 has omnidirectional early warning capabilities, but due to the limitation of the size of the radar antenna, its detection range is relatively close.
Excitingly, China now has a more advanced platform called the Y-20, and there is news that it is developing a new AWACS aircraft based on the Y-20. The Y-20 not only excels in terms of endurance and comfort, but can also carry more sophisticated equipment and cruise over the theater for a longer period of time. With only about six more large AWACS aircraft, China will be able to build a complete early warning system, comparable to that of the United States. Even more exciting is the possibility that the new AWACS aircraft will use conformal antenna technology. This technology designs the radar antenna to match the shape of the aircraft's skin, and embeds the antenna into the surface of the aircraft, which not only does not affect the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft, but also improves the detection and maintainability of the radar. If this technology is adopted, its performance will be at the world's leading level.