Tuesday, April 24, 2007

New PLAN CIWS

well, we saw that China showed some Kashtan clones in the recent IDEX 2007 show. But those ones seemed to be pretty much geared for exports.

I got picture of a couple of new CIWS apparently for PLAN. Not sure if these are seriously going into service or not. An interesting part is that they no longer have the radar on the gun itself. I assume that must mean it requires some kind of on board radar (like Kashtan's on board radar) for targetting.


The latter is clearly more advanced with the 8 extra missiles + 1 extra "eye"
- Type 730 only had 3 "eyes" - TV tracking, IR tracking and LRF. Not sure what the 4th one is.

Friday, April 6, 2007

AVIC II development in helicopter and transports

Found this yesterday, interestingly enough, it was originally written in 2002 by someone from AVIC II. Even though it is 5 years old, it's amazing how much of the article has revealed. Anyhow, it mainly describes future works in two areas:
1. Helicopter
2. Transports.

Remember, this was written in 2002





states the following:
- China has used copying, self development and joint development to create Z-5, Z-6, Z-7, Z-8, Z-9, Z-11, participated in EC-120 and S-92 development. Mentionned some other ones, but I've never heard of them.
- currently, the mainly produced helicopters are Z-8, Z-9, Z-11 and EC-120
- Z-8 is the heaviest helicopter, it uses 3 turboshaft engine, maximum takeoff is 13 ton, maximum cruising speed is 248 km/h, range 800 km, ceiling 3050m????, endurance 4.1 h, first flight in 1985, produced 15 so far.
- Z-9 is licensed copy of AS565N, maximum takeoff is 3850 kg, payload is 1863 kg, cruising speed 293 km/h, ceiling 4500 m, range 910 km, endurance 4.4 h, first flight in 1982, has so far produced around 100 Z-9s and achieved 75% indigenization
- Z-11 is the first self developed helicopter, maximum takeoff is 2200 kg, payload is 880 kg, cruising speed is 238 km/h, ceiling 5280 m, range 600 m, endurance 3.7 h, 31 produced so far.
- EC-120, maximum takeoff 1730 kg, maximum speed 232 km/h, ceiling 6035 m, range 748 km, endurance 4.2 h, over 300 produced world wide, each year delivers over 100?

Transports
Y-5 - first small transport, 12 passenger, maximum takeoff 5250 kg, payload 1500 kg, ceiling 4500 m, speed 239 km/h, takeoff in less than 200 m, first flight in 1957, has produced over 1000
Y-12 - twin-turboprop engine aircraft, maximum takeoff 5670 kg, payload 1984 kg, speed 328 km/h, range 1340 km, takeoff distance 500 m, first flight in 1982, first Chinese plane to receive CAAC certification, the only one to receive CAA and FAA certification, produced over 120 so far and exported 94
Y-8 - 4-turboprop engine aircraft, maximum takeoff 61 t, payload 20 t, largest single drop item 7400 kg, ceiling 10.4 km, speed 662 km/h, range 5615 km, first flight in 1974, received Chinese aviation certification in 1993, deliverd over 80 and exported 16
Y-7 - 2-turboprop engine aircraft, first flight in 1970, received Chinese aviation certification in 1998, MA-60's maximum takeoff is 21.8 t, maximum payload 5500 kg, cruising speed 505 km/h, range 2400 km, seat 50-60, produced over 200
Y-10 - 150 seat aircraft using 4 turbofan engines, 2 prototypes, development started in 1970, first flight in 1980 and then cancelled, 130 flights, 170 flight hours. maximum takeoff is 110 t, maximum payload 25 t, 974 km/h, range 6400 m

back to helicopter.
Z-11 variants:
- in Z-11a, use a new engine that raises power from 510 kw to 557 kw, increase payload to 1074 m, ceiling to 6000 m, Hover ceiling (out of ground effect): 4,484m, Hover ceiling (in ground effect): 5,174m, climb rate 11.3 m/s
- Z-11b, payload to 1164 m, ceiling to 5168 m, Hover ceiling (out of ground effect): 3283m, Hover ceiling (in ground effect): 3932m, climb rate 8.4 m/s

Z-9 variants:
H-410A, H-425, H-450 - look at third picture. The stats are maximum takeoff, payload, service ceiling, hover ceiling (out of ground), hover ceiling (in ground effect)
H-410A - improved from Z-9A, engine go from 526 kw to 626 kw
H-425 - improved rotor system, avionics, structure, fuel management system
H-450 - in design certification stage

Z-8 variants:
Z-8F from Z-8A, uses a new engine that raises from 1190 kw to 1448 kw, go from titanium to composite rotor blades, service ceiling becomes 4700 m, in ground effect hover ceiling 2800 m

EC-120:
- raise domestic content to over 40%, HAIG is looking for a assembly line

S-92
- build capability of producing 48 tails per year.

Next generation , 6 tonne helicopter (originally CMH, should be EC-175 now)
- raise the survival rate of crew from crash to 85%, composite material to over 80%
maximum takeoff of 6 t, payload > 2.5 t, speed 270 km/h, range > 800 km, service ceiling is 5880 m

10 tonne helicopter, use a lot of composite material and 2 turboshaft engine, wish to produce an engine with 1765 kw output

Tilt-rotor aircraft, S-863 project and looking for joint development with other countries. I guess this is to create a Chinese V-22?

And then, there is a table with Y-12 performances on last picture. You can probably tell what they are.

more from this article.



Basically, starting from Y-12IV, first upgrade is to Y-12E, and then Y-12G, then Y-12F, you can see the stats for Y-12 from the last post.

Y-8 variants
- start with Y-8F400, reduce piloting crew from 5 to 3, use more advanced avionics, first flight in 2001 and certification in 2002
- then work on Y-8F600, crew reduced from 3 to 2, 4 blade propellor changed to 6, turboprop engine output from 3126 kw to 4039 kw, service life from 20000 h to 30000 h, cabin volume from 137 m^3 to 170, planned first flight in 2003
- then Y-8F800, maximum payload from 20 t to 30 t, range from 3800 km to 7800 km

Then talked about licensed production of BCRJ-50 with Embraer (ERJ-45)

large transport
- has a table in second picture comparing An-70, IL-76 and Y-10

turboshaft engine development
- start with WZ-8A
- develop an engine for the 6 tonne helicopter (I believe this is WZ-9)
- researching into an engine for the 10 tonne helicopter (I believe this is WZ-10)

You can see a table there in 2nd picture. the rows are the engines, the columns represent engine output, fuel consumption rate, output to weight ratio, temperature and the helicopter to equip on

Need improvement in transmission and rotor technology, using more composite material, survival technology

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

New pictures of surveillence platforms

Well, we're finally getting pictures of the surveillence platforms again. About a year ago, we were getting a new type every week, but we haven't had any photos of KJ-2000 this year until now. It could be a new one from the colour of the radar, chin + no numbering. And also, it looks like a new Y-8 Command Post (the prototype was yellow).


Finally,