China’s new military transport plane exposed. And it looks like a C-17, An-70, A400M hybrid.

Posted by Alert5 today, the following image shows the first photographs of China’s new four-engine military airlifter.

The large military transport aircraft is allegedly designed Y-20 and, nose aside, its shape is almost identical to that shown in a series of artist’s impressions that have appeared on Chinese media outlets.

Indeed, the aircraft depicted in the detailed renderings you can find in this post seems to be a turbojet clone of the Airbus A400M Atlas four-engine turboprop, whereas the one depicted on the ground in the new pictures features a nose section inspired by the Antonov An-70.

Actually, inputs from several other aircraft types, including the Boeing C-17, can be found in the Y-20. In July 2009, a former Boeing employee was convicted of selling secret C-17 technical details to China.

It looks like an AWACS version of the Y-20 is also being envisaged.

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About David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.