Beijing tests flying oil tanker near Taiwan, in show of extended air force range

Name: Mighty Dragon: China’s upgraded J-20 stealth fighter
Uploaded: 2021-11-29T10:00:29.000Z
Duration: 1 min 56 s
Description: Mighty Dragon: China’s upgraded J-20 stealth fighter

A variant of the Y-20 military aircraft can refuel fighter jets and bombers mid-air, expanding the PLA Air Force operational range to 8,000km: Global Times

The debut outing for the refuel aircraft comes after US lawmakers vow ‘rock-solid’ support for Taipei in a surprise one-day visit to the island

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The PLA’s modified Y-20 allows refuelling of fighter jets mid-air, extending the range of the Chinese air force.
Photo: 81.com

Kristin Huang

Published: 6:00pm, 29 Nov 2021Updated: 7:02pm, 29 Nov 2021

An oil tanker aircraft joined mainland China’s air patrol near Taiwan for the first time on Sunday, according to the island’s defence ministry, a move an analyst said was to show the PLA’s boosted attack ability.

The Y-20 aerial refuelling aircraft was sent with 26 military planes – 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, two KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft and a Y-9 transport aircraft – into Taiwan’s air-defence identification zone (ADIZ), prompting Taipei to scramble fighter jets and deploy missile systems for monitoring.

The H-6 bombers and six of the fighter jets flew south of Taiwan into the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines before steering out into the Pacific and returning to the mainland, according to a map provided by the Taiwanese defence ministry.

Beijing has been sending patrols into the island’s ADIZ on almost a daily basis since late September last year. The ADIZ is not the same as Taiwan’s territorial air space, but a self-declared space that is monitored for security purposes.

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Mighty Dragon: China’s upgraded J-20 stealth fighter

The Y-20 is a Chinese domestically developed large cargo plane. The aerial tanker variant of the Y-20 can refuel J-20 fighter jets and H-6 bombers mid-air using the probe-and-drogue refuelling method, which could expand the operational range of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force to more than 8000km (4,970 miles) and combat radius to 3,000km, according to a Global Times report.

It is widely expected that the tanker variant of the Y-20 will work together with – and eventually replace – the PLA’s few imported Il-78 tankers and the domestically developed but less capable HU-6, according to the report.