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China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

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Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#91

Post by chatmasta »

Someone wrote: post #84

"it carries a world record payload of 250 tons (to put this into comparison, it can carry around 300,000 lbs more than the US military's Boeing made C-17" What was the writer thinking? My readers won't understand what 250 tons is, so I'll use imperial metrics, too? Net effect is that this only makes full sense to those who understand both metric and imperial units. (I think a pound is 454 grams ('easy' to remember be…

I think it's more like "my readers don't grasp just how heavy 250 tons is."

It's equivalent to saying "Mt Everest is nearly 6 miles, or 29,000 feet, high."

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#92

Post by Dylan16807 »

chatmasta wrote: post #91
Someone wrote: post #84

"it carries a world record payload of 250 tons (to put this into comparison, it can carry around 300,000 lbs more than the US military's Boeing made C-17" What was the writer thinking? My readers won't understand what 250 tons is, so I'll use imperial metrics, too? Net effect is that this only makes full sense to those who understand both metric and imperial units. (I think a pound is 454 grams ('easy' to remember be…

I think it's more like "my readers don't grasp just how heavy 250 tons is." It's equivalent to saying "Mt Everest is nearly 6 miles, or 29,000 feet, high."

If it actually gave both versions of the same number, that would be fine. But this way is just confusing. It would be like saying "Mt Everest is nearly 6 miles high, or in other words more than 16000 feet higher than Mt Fuji"

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#93

Post by [deleted] »

finid wrote: post #43
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, the words "fuel" and "economic" do not occur in that article. You can infer something from phrases like "flying super heavy cargos" and "by bringing infrastructure ... that are normally too big for airlift" but it would be interesting to see if anyone has something to add directly on that topic as to what exactly the drawbacks to that scale are. The fact that only one was ever made also implies that the uses are…

"Fuel" and "economic" do not have to be used explicitly in the article, or is reading and comprehension a lost art? Take the following paragraph, for example: > For China, the An-225 would open whole new frontiers in commercial and military air transportation. A fleet of civilian An-225s could quickly ship heavy and bulky cargoes of massive scale, ranging from construction equipment to consumer goods. For humanitaria…

[deleted]

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#94

Post by TeMPOraL »

DashRattlesnake wrote: post #88
digi_owl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it got fatally compromised as either a 3 letter agency or the pentagon wanted to use it for satellite maintenance/retrieval. Never happened, but it still resulted in a hybrid design that was basically suitable for neither. In the end it may well have continued flying as a kind of "national pride" issue.

> a 3 letter agency or the pentagon wanted to use it for satellite maintenance/retrieval. Never happened I think they did do satellite maintenance from the shuttle a few times, most notably on the Hubble telescope.

Speaking from memory, but AFAIR the biggest impact of those military requirements on the Shuttle design were coming from the "nonstandard" orbits and orbital schedules those missions would require.

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#95

Post by maxerickson »

kragen wrote: post #90

From the title, I thought this was going to be about the Spruce Goose, but it turns out the Spruce Goose was designed only for a 75-ton capacity, not the 250 tons of the Ан-225. The Spruce Goose had a larger wingspan (97.5 m rather than 88 m) but the Ан-225 is longer (84 m rather than 66⅔ m). It's interesting to reflect that the previous "world's largest plane," and still the one with the widest wingspan, dates from…

They aren't super sized, but between the C-17 and C-5, the US has ~250 large cargo planes in service.

There's also hundreds of 747s that could be pressed into service (or just utilized) in a world gone to hell scenario.

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#96

Post by Animats »

The PLA is trying to establish a power projection capability.

There are very few militaries in the world that can routinely operate on a large scale a long way from their home bases. The US can and does. Russia can do it with difficulty. Britain can do it on a small scale. Beyond that, few armies have the logistics capability. China is gearing up to join the club.

There's also the PLA Navy's aircraft carrier program, which is progressing slowly. They have one refurbished USSR aircraft carrier in commission for training purposes, and two ramp-type carriers under construction.

This doesn't seem to be the PLA's big effort, though. Most of their new weapon systems are for sea dominance in China's coastal waters, broadly defined.

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#97

Post by PeterisP »

k_lander wrote: post #63
wallace_f wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it difficult enough that not even a nation state as large and powerful as china has obstacles to develop a heavy turbofan? With respect to other tech they've developed I don't know what is technologically difficult here -- I'm asking genuinely as a layman, it's not a rhetorical statement of disagreement.

Also, how Ukraine, out of all countries?

Ukraine has traditionally been the location of most Soviet block aerospace engineering and manufacturing, and much of it is still being manufactured there.

For example, several current models of Russian helicopters and military ships rely on engines made only in Ukraine, and the recent conflict and disruption of the military industrial complex (which used to and still is rather connected between Ukraine and Russia) has caused delays in producing these craft since you can't really replicate it easily, it takes a lot of time, skill and effort.

Also, lots of military rocket manufacture (from shoulder-operated to very large SAM) was and is located in Ukraine. Together with their rather large nuclear industry (currently civilian, but they used to manufacture warheads as well, plus the missile and guidance systems) they probably could be a first-rate nuclear power with MIRV ICBMs if there was a political will to make it so again.

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#98

Post by tw04 »

Someone wrote: post #84

"it carries a world record payload of 250 tons (to put this into comparison, it can carry around 300,000 lbs more than the US military's Boeing made C-17" What was the writer thinking? My readers won't understand what 250 tons is, so I'll use imperial metrics, too? Net effect is that this only makes full sense to those who understand both metric and imperial units. (I think a pound is 454 grams ('easy' to remember be…

Given the publication, I would imagine he's an American author writing to an American audience. I didn't think twice that 1 ton = 2,000 lbs so it made perfect sense here.

Makes sense it would be confusing to people on the metric system, but I doubt he thought twice about it.

Re: China Will Resurrect the World's Largest Plane

#100

Post by kragen »

maxerickson wrote: post #95
kragen wrote: post #90

From the title, I thought this was going to be about the Spruce Goose, but it turns out the Spruce Goose was designed only for a 75-ton capacity, not the 250 tons of the Ан-225. The Spruce Goose had a larger wingspan (97.5 m rather than 88 m) but the Ан-225 is longer (84 m rather than 66⅔ m). It's interesting to reflect that the previous "world's largest plane," and still the one with the widest wingspan, dates from…

They aren't super sized, but between the C-17 and C-5, the US has ~250 large cargo planes in service. There's also hundreds of 747s that could be pressed into service (or just utilized) in a world gone to hell scenario.

I don't think of it as a "world gone to hell scenario" so much as a "World War II scenario" or a "Bronze Age collapse scenario". Smaller cargo planes should be somewhat more survivable than bigger ones in an environment full of Angels' Teeth and other micro-drones, but downing 250 large cargo planes still only requires landing 250 small robots on them and cutting a fuel line or something.
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