Posted on 10/23/2019 11:44:57 PM PDT by NorseViking
Over the past few years, the strategic partnership in the field of aviation technology between China and Ukraine have been developing at a rapid pace. We are observing not only a continuous flow of a huge number of Ukrainian specialists in relevant fields moving to China for work, but also a constant exchange of key technological developments between Ukrainian aerospace companies and Chinese aviation enterprises. As we know, earlier the Ukrainian company “Motor Sich” ceded to China the production technology and tooling for the D-18T high-power turbofan engine, and subsequently another well-known Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer - KB “Progress” named after Academician A.G. Ivchenko - it is getting ready to transfer to China key technological developments on the An-225 transport aircraft. It can be said that if successful, this important deal will give a powerful impetus to increase the research and development potential in the production of Chinese transport aircraft and will have a significant impact on it.
An-225, designed and constructed by Antonov's OKB at the time of the former Soviet Union, at the time of its appearance was the largest transport aircraft in the world. Its maximum take-off weight reaches 640 tons, its length is 84 meters, its wingspan is 88.4 meters, and its maximum carrying capacity is 250 tons. This aircraft has beaten all world records, be it take-off mass or weight and size characteristics.
(Excerpt) Read more at sohu.com ...
However, by the end of the 80s of the last century, the economy of the Soviet Union, which was in a state of endless arms race with the United States, was on the verge of collapse, and the lack of funding led to the fact that the program for space exploration and the development of the aerospace industry was finally curtailed. As a result, the need for an An-225 transport aircraft designed and built specifically for the purpose of transporting the Buran spacecraft disappeared. One of the aircraft was mothballed, on the other - the prototype - the work was only partially completed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these two An-225s, including all the technological data for the model, went to Ukraine.
After Ukraine gained independence, the economic situation in the country left much to be desired, and it was only natural that she was not able to bear the costs of further research and development of large military equipment - like the An-225 transport aircraft. Therefore, as in the case of the huge Soviet technological and military legacy, the Ukrainian government decided to put up an operating machine and technological data on the aircraft for sale.
There is absolutely no doubt that, in terms of the totality of its capabilities, the An-225 has a completely obvious superiority. High-thrust engines provide him with an extra-long range that exceeds 15 thousand kilometers, a cruising speed of 850 km / h and the ability to make long flights at an altitude of 10 thousand meters. In addition, the An-225 has a payload of 250 tons. Even if we take all the military transport aircraft existing in the world, the An-225 will be among the first in this indicator.
Thus, if China gets at its disposal key technological developments on this model, it will bring our mobile deployment capabilities and strategic transportation potential to the world level, and also save a huge amount of time, human and financial resources for Chinese aircraft manufacturers to research and develop transport aircraft .
Later
Who needs spies when the goods are handed to you?
Another fruit of regime change.
Interesting.
Two countries with a history of not caring a whit about intellectual property in a situation where information can flow freely because one side has a lot of money and jobs, and one side has people with knowledge.
What are the Ukranians going to do? Cut the throat of anyone who takes a job at a Chinese aerospace firm?
The problem of Ukrainian aerospace industry is they lack markets at this point but still possess somehow advanced technology.
Their cooperation with China at this point is inevitable and for China it means quantum leap in aviation design.
Lol, I'm sure the previous pro-Russian-Ukrainian government would not have sold technology to China, when the biggest seller of high tech weaponry to China is Putin's Russia.
China is once again buying big in Russia. Chinese contracts for Russian military hardware are valued at $7 billion, Russian media reported earlier this month. China’s purchases had slowed following a significant spike in the mid-2000s. This latest uptick is due to the fact that the Kremlin has finally agreed to hi-tech sales. The contracts cover Sukhoi-35 combat jets and S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft weapon systems. These are products of Russia’s most advanced weapons technology. “We also supply a large number of aircraft engines to China,” Russian officials said. “All these projects will continue.”
https://www.thetrumpet.com/17032-russia-selling-china-advanced-weaponry
The difference is obvious. Russia sells finished products.
Ukraine at this point closes the shop. The entire industry is moving to China complete with equipment, plans and engineers because they are out of business at home.
According to the Wikipedia article on the An-225 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya), Antonov has produced exactly one complete and in-service An-225. A second, incomplete airframe exists in Ukraine.
So these aircraft are essentially handmade.
The single complete An-225 is being leased commericially to fly super heavy cargos worldwide. The charter isn’t cheap given the aircraft’s size and fuel consumption. In addition, the maximum takeoff and landing weights for this aircraft limit the airfields this aircraft can be operated from.
It all comes down to the number of missions requiring this unique aircraft’s capabilities. So far, worldwide demand hasn’t even been enough to justify completing the second airframe.
Just how many new build An-225s (or the Chinese variant) can the projected Chinese mission requirement justify building? Two? Three?
The point is technology. If they know how to build this they can build more suitable aircraft too.
But the main thing is the engines they already got. Before that they were literally stone age in that department. That among 9ther things meant their bomber force had very limited range and performance. Now things are changing.
Agree with you on the Chinese needing to up their game on jet engine technology.
Your comment concerning bombers highlights the pluses and minuses of using Antonov. On the plus side, Antonov is a world leader (if not THE world leader) in building very big, multiengine things that fly and carry really heavy, outsized loads. On the minus side, those big things are not bombers and are ...well, I guess some of them (smaller multiengine cargo turboprops and the STOL jet cargo transports) are combat aircraft.
However. at the moment, Antonov appears to have a lot of surplus engineering capacity according to the article and Freeper comments. So maybe they will form the foundation of a development team headed up by different engineers; ones who do have experience designing big combat aircraft. Tupolev? Sukhoi?
Maybe Russia and China will flip R&D roles and China will develop and Russia will adopt: Chinese exterior, Russian interior.
Just watch out for the backdoors in the chips.
Antonov today is a decaying mostly empty property. It mostly stopped functioning in 1990s developing exactly two and a half types since that time. Two of them in cooperation with Russian companies and the programs were a sort of Russian welfare policy to keep Antonov afloat.
Today it is almost over. The value is in patents and plans from the old times.
Hadn’t kept up in recent years and also had mistakenly identified some of the recent Sukhoi transports with Antonov. Sorry to hear they have fallen on such hard times.
Although the Soviet Union was THE enemy during the entirety of my military career, it was interesting to see their design solutions to common military mission requirements. The succession of MBT designs, the innovations in ship design, and especially the aircraft designs always told you how talented and original Russian engineers were is their definition of key attributes and how to go about achieving them.
I still consider the Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bomber in its original glass nose form among the most beautiful propeller driven aircraft ever flown. I understand it is not much fun to fly in, but it sure is beautiful to watch as it arrows its way through the sky.
Tu-95 is as fast as modern commercial jet and the latter only recently started to match it in fuel efficiency.
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