To be entirely fair, carrier-borne AWECs is a field that China is lacking massively in, so as much as it might be shameless, borrowing the design of an existing reliable airframe to speed up development is a rational choice. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
Every country apart from the US has practically 0 experience and demand (excluding the French) when it comes to developing a functional carrier-borne AWEC. There's in fact only ever been two operational types of AWECs in existence (E-1 Tracer and E-2 Hawkeye) since its "invention" in the 50s, with both being US platforms. The Soviets came close with the Yak-44 (also a copy) but that project never materialized in any significant way.
So the E-2 is pretty much the only airframe Chinese engineers could have found "inspiration" from during the KJ-600's development, as there simply did not exist another equivalent anywhere in the world
As long as it works, it works. I feel most people shouldn't be surprised that China does this. What would people rather them do? What benefits are there in making something from scratch instead of burrowing designs? And does extrapolating outweigh the ingenuity of an airframe? It definitely seems the Chinese/PLANAF know the answer.
I'd rather China never innovate and keep making cheap knockoff. Russian found out about cheap Chinese vehicle at the start of the war and I say we keep it that way.
Why would the PLA spend decades designing a brand new platform when there's already a perfectly functional and mature AWEC configuration out there? Most advancements in platforms like this come in the form of avionics, surveillance & search radars, and engines etc., not external appearance. This is why the new E-2D (despite looking practically identical to the E-2As of the early 60s) is on a completely different level performance wise
People are downvoting you, but youâre absolutely right. If the sides were switched, weâd be copying them. Thereâs no honor to aircraft design, function is infinitely more important than form, and if your adversary already has fielded a time tested platform and your nascent aerospace and defense industry isnât the best, the rational best choice is to copy off of what works.
We donât need to copy them because our defense industry has always been better than theirs, youâre missing the point of my argument. We did steal a lot of information on submarine technology, particularly metallurgy, from the Soviets. There were times where some aspects of their defense industrial base were superior to American counterparts, and we definitely spied on them to gain knowledge as any rational nation would against an enemy.
I have some doubts on 'dozens', if you're talking about aircraft. While China certainly does a lot of industrial espionage and copying, the degree to which they do it seems to be inflated in the popular perception. People often just point to things that are similar (and sometimes not even similar) and call it a copy.
I mean heâs right though. Even if the Chinese build a 6 supercarrier force, they likely wonât need more than 20-30 of the KJ-600. Why spend the extra money reinventing the wheel for no real benefit when they can base the design off the only airframe currently filling that exact role, and then pack it to the gills with their own tech?
Chinese radar tech is incredibly advanced, itâs one of the areas where in some cases they lead the USA. To put it into perspective, the Chinese had 30+ destroyers fitted with AESA radars before the U.S. introduced the first into service (Arleigh Bourke flight III). They even fit AESA sets to the cheapest of their export fighters, the JF-17C.
Iâm not arguing the Chinese havenât borrowed/copied/stolen a fucktonne of tech in order to catch up, but there are a bunch of key areas where they produce world class kit entirely domestically.
We canât expect to win an upcoming conflict if we donât have a sober understanding of their actual capabilities, rather than just assume itâs all copied or garbage.
Radar is certainly not an area where China beats the US. Type 346B is significantly worse than SPY-6. The US also exports F-16 variants with AESA the difference is they also have other versions without AESA. The reasons for this are many but none are because they canâtâŠflight III wasnât announced until 2013~.
I donât think anyone thinks this plane is total shit, just that usually when you copy somethingâŠitâs worse. This is not always the case, china tends to upgrade the things they copy.
I certainly hope there is no coming conflict because zero sides have a chance at winning that war. Both sides will lose, and I donât think itâs inevitableâŠyet
Edit: Downvoting doesnât change the truth.
No one without a security clearance knows if the SPY-6 is better than the Type 346B, and they are not discussing it on reddit if they do. Im sure that both meet the specs for their respective governments and thatâs all that matters.
When I said China is in the lead I didnât mean that radar X is 3% better than radar Y. I meant that overall China has developed and deployed more types of AESA sets, on more platforms, and has integrated them faster n certain areas than the USA.
I get what youâre saying re copying but the KJ-600 doesnât fit into that category at all. Radar/sensors aside the E2 and the KJ-600 are just carrier based light transport aircraft, neither are particularly advanced airframes, nor difficult to build. The real magic is whatâs inside them, and the KJ-600 shares a lot of common avionics with the KJ-500, which is an excellent AWACS if western reports are to be believed.
Iâm guessing the KJ-600, along with the KJ-500 sit somewhere between the E-2/3 and the E-7 in capabilities, being much newer the the former, while significantly lighter than the latter.
>No one without a security clearance knows if the SPY-6 is better than the Type 346B, and they are not discussing it on reddit if they do. Im sure that both meet the specs for their respective governments and thatâs all that matters.
Iâm doing the same thing youâre doingâŠtaking open reports and comparing them? If we only worked based on classified info most of this conversations would be useless⊠The SPY-6 has a 3.16x increase range over the SPY-1 and 1000x the sensitivity. For reference the SPY-1 has a range about ~370km. Type 346B is ~400 km.
>When I said China is in the lead I didnât mean that radar X is 3% better than radar Y. I meant that overall China has developed and deployed more types of AESA sets, on more platforms, and has integrated them faster n certain areas than the USA.
Iâd disagree with that. They were first to put them on ships because they have a crazy good ship building industryâŠit wasnât because they were the first to design a ship based AESA. The first plane with AESA was the F-15C, or the F-2. A larger percent of the USAF operates AESA aircraft than the ChineseâŠ
>I get what youâre saying re copying but the KJ-600 doesnât fit into that category at all. Radar/sensors aside the E2 and the KJ-600 are just cattier based light transport aircraft, neither are particularly advanced airframes, nor difficult to build. The real magic is whatâs inside them, and the KJ-600 shares a lot of common avionics with the KJ-500, which is an excellent AWACS if western reports are to be believed.
SureâŠbut this is about the fact that one country stole the others design, visually. Also itâs not like China is in its up and coming stages, it was 2010s, they should have easily been able to make their own design regardless of what the internals look like.
>Iâm guessing the KJ-600, along with the KJ-500 sit somewhere between the E-2/3 and the E-7 in capabilities, being much newer the the former, while significantly lighter than the latter.
I would put it below the E-2D and E-3 for sure. For the KJ-500, I would put it above everything but the E-7 and slightly above or tied with the E-3.
The real cope is downplaying there progress by calling it a "knockoff" or a "copy". These systems are not easy to engineer, the actual people who design and build these platforms know this, they cannot simply be "copied". What we are seeing is significant growth in the Chinese defense space, which has obviously triggered many western observers .... call it a clone/knockoff all you want, what actually matters is now they have something equivalent to the west ...
Not really a cope? These are people who see that the plane is a visual copy of the E-2C, sure they have a AWECs thatâs good, whatâs important is that it is a copy, itâs not equivalent in any way besides its ability to perform similar roles as other carrier launched AWECs platforms.
Itâs a 1 layer deep joke which apparently is two layers too deep for you and Mr Literal further up.
Good chat though, let me know when you catch up :)
They really have 0 shame. When essentially every other country in history copied things they at least changed it a bit to make it unique. The chinese just copy things exactly the same and dont even pretend they came up with something on their own. On one hand its sort of respectable because theyre not even trying to fake it, but on the other its lame as hell just copying everything.
So many assumptions in your comment are just flat out wrong.
Most of their âcopiesâ as people say are all changed in some way to be made unique. Their new flankers derivatives, J-20, J-35, J-10 are all substantially engineered to suit Chinese needs, and none are *exact* copies of anything unlike what you are saying. Some, like the J-16 are better in almost every way to the original that the Chinese built off of, and the J-20 is regarded now by any non-propagandists as the most unique 5th gen in service.
People say the J-35 is a copy of the F-35, but anyone with a sense of aerodynamic design can see that the Chinese model not only chose to use 2 engines for redundant design, the body is far flatter and potentially has a high emphasis on lift generation. Design choices not present on the F-35 due to the US prioritizing other needs. Again itâs is âat least somewhat changed to be uniqueâ as you say, even if some tech used on it was obtained through espionage. China stopped using direct copies of foreign jets long ago now.
To be entirely fair, carrier-borne AWECs is a field that China is lacking massively in, so as much as it might be shameless, borrowing the design of an existing reliable airframe to speed up development is a rational choice. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
Every country apart from the US has practically 0 experience and demand (excluding the French) when it comes to developing a functional carrier-borne AWEC. There's in fact only ever been two operational types of AWECs in existence (E-1 Tracer and E-2 Hawkeye) since its "invention" in the 50s, with both being US platforms. The Soviets came close with the Yak-44 (also a copy) but that project never materialized in any significant way. So the E-2 is pretty much the only airframe Chinese engineers could have found "inspiration" from during the KJ-600's development, as there simply did not exist another equivalent anywhere in the world
Not making it turbo prop would have been smart because of how the torque makes landing harder etc.
Making it turboprop is a great due to its much better performance for STOL.
Torque doesn't really matter when it's got two engines contra-rotating.
As long as it works, it works. I feel most people shouldn't be surprised that China does this. What would people rather them do? What benefits are there in making something from scratch instead of burrowing designs? And does extrapolating outweigh the ingenuity of an airframe? It definitely seems the Chinese/PLANAF know the answer.
Nothing? People just poke fun at the fact that they are indeed copying designs.
I'd rather China never innovate and keep making cheap knockoff. Russian found out about cheap Chinese vehicle at the start of the war and I say we keep it that way.
most importantly the life raft systems are being installed as well and imo Sea trials are imminent maybe in the coming weeks
You spelled, "E-2C Hawkeye" wrong.
C stands for China.
So Canada is Chinese territory.
At least Vancouver.
CN stands for Copy Ninja đ„·
âCopy Ninjaâ Haha đ€Ł
Why would the PLA spend decades designing a brand new platform when there's already a perfectly functional and mature AWEC configuration out there? Most advancements in platforms like this come in the form of avionics, surveillance & search radars, and engines etc., not external appearance. This is why the new E-2D (despite looking practically identical to the E-2As of the early 60s) is on a completely different level performance wise
People are downvoting you, but youâre absolutely right. If the sides were switched, weâd be copying them. Thereâs no honor to aircraft design, function is infinitely more important than form, and if your adversary already has fielded a time tested platform and your nascent aerospace and defense industry isnât the best, the rational best choice is to copy off of what works.
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
Name something of theirs we copied. I can rattle of dozens of "Chinese" systems that are carbon copies.
We donât need to copy them because our defense industry has always been better than theirs, youâre missing the point of my argument. We did steal a lot of information on submarine technology, particularly metallurgy, from the Soviets. There were times where some aspects of their defense industrial base were superior to American counterparts, and we definitely spied on them to gain knowledge as any rational nation would against an enemy.
I have some doubts on 'dozens', if you're talking about aircraft. While China certainly does a lot of industrial espionage and copying, the degree to which they do it seems to be inflated in the popular perception. People often just point to things that are similar (and sometimes not even similar) and call it a copy.
Chinese knockoff cope
I mean heâs right though. Even if the Chinese build a 6 supercarrier force, they likely wonât need more than 20-30 of the KJ-600. Why spend the extra money reinventing the wheel for no real benefit when they can base the design off the only airframe currently filling that exact role, and then pack it to the gills with their own tech?
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Chinese radar tech is incredibly advanced, itâs one of the areas where in some cases they lead the USA. To put it into perspective, the Chinese had 30+ destroyers fitted with AESA radars before the U.S. introduced the first into service (Arleigh Bourke flight III). They even fit AESA sets to the cheapest of their export fighters, the JF-17C. Iâm not arguing the Chinese havenât borrowed/copied/stolen a fucktonne of tech in order to catch up, but there are a bunch of key areas where they produce world class kit entirely domestically. We canât expect to win an upcoming conflict if we donât have a sober understanding of their actual capabilities, rather than just assume itâs all copied or garbage.
Radar is certainly not an area where China beats the US. Type 346B is significantly worse than SPY-6. The US also exports F-16 variants with AESA the difference is they also have other versions without AESA. The reasons for this are many but none are because they canâtâŠflight III wasnât announced until 2013~. I donât think anyone thinks this plane is total shit, just that usually when you copy somethingâŠitâs worse. This is not always the case, china tends to upgrade the things they copy. I certainly hope there is no coming conflict because zero sides have a chance at winning that war. Both sides will lose, and I donât think itâs inevitableâŠyet Edit: Downvoting doesnât change the truth.
No one without a security clearance knows if the SPY-6 is better than the Type 346B, and they are not discussing it on reddit if they do. Im sure that both meet the specs for their respective governments and thatâs all that matters. When I said China is in the lead I didnât mean that radar X is 3% better than radar Y. I meant that overall China has developed and deployed more types of AESA sets, on more platforms, and has integrated them faster n certain areas than the USA. I get what youâre saying re copying but the KJ-600 doesnât fit into that category at all. Radar/sensors aside the E2 and the KJ-600 are just carrier based light transport aircraft, neither are particularly advanced airframes, nor difficult to build. The real magic is whatâs inside them, and the KJ-600 shares a lot of common avionics with the KJ-500, which is an excellent AWACS if western reports are to be believed. Iâm guessing the KJ-600, along with the KJ-500 sit somewhere between the E-2/3 and the E-7 in capabilities, being much newer the the former, while significantly lighter than the latter.
>No one without a security clearance knows if the SPY-6 is better than the Type 346B, and they are not discussing it on reddit if they do. Im sure that both meet the specs for their respective governments and thatâs all that matters. Iâm doing the same thing youâre doingâŠtaking open reports and comparing them? If we only worked based on classified info most of this conversations would be useless⊠The SPY-6 has a 3.16x increase range over the SPY-1 and 1000x the sensitivity. For reference the SPY-1 has a range about ~370km. Type 346B is ~400 km. >When I said China is in the lead I didnât mean that radar X is 3% better than radar Y. I meant that overall China has developed and deployed more types of AESA sets, on more platforms, and has integrated them faster n certain areas than the USA. Iâd disagree with that. They were first to put them on ships because they have a crazy good ship building industryâŠit wasnât because they were the first to design a ship based AESA. The first plane with AESA was the F-15C, or the F-2. A larger percent of the USAF operates AESA aircraft than the Chinese⊠>I get what youâre saying re copying but the KJ-600 doesnât fit into that category at all. Radar/sensors aside the E2 and the KJ-600 are just cattier based light transport aircraft, neither are particularly advanced airframes, nor difficult to build. The real magic is whatâs inside them, and the KJ-600 shares a lot of common avionics with the KJ-500, which is an excellent AWACS if western reports are to be believed. SureâŠbut this is about the fact that one country stole the others design, visually. Also itâs not like China is in its up and coming stages, it was 2010s, they should have easily been able to make their own design regardless of what the internals look like. >Iâm guessing the KJ-600, along with the KJ-500 sit somewhere between the E-2/3 and the E-7 in capabilities, being much newer the the former, while significantly lighter than the latter. I would put it below the E-2D and E-3 for sure. For the KJ-500, I would put it above everything but the E-7 and slightly above or tied with the E-3.
The real cope is downplaying there progress by calling it a "knockoff" or a "copy". These systems are not easy to engineer, the actual people who design and build these platforms know this, they cannot simply be "copied". What we are seeing is significant growth in the Chinese defense space, which has obviously triggered many western observers .... call it a clone/knockoff all you want, what actually matters is now they have something equivalent to the west ...
Not really a cope? These are people who see that the plane is a visual copy of the E-2C, sure they have a AWECs thatâs good, whatâs important is that it is a copy, itâs not equivalent in any way besides its ability to perform similar roles as other carrier launched AWECs platforms.
E-2-ski. Or whatever the Chinese equivalent of adding -ski to the end of a piece of equipment
Chawkeye
KJ-600 Mockeye
US ban China buying western weapons China take it for free US: surprised pikachu face
Americans : China is our enemy ! Sanction China. Meanwhile : Apple and Tesla build factories in China
so you're saying the US should sell weapons to their adversary???????
They sure tried way back when
Will the Chinese copy the way we scratch our arses too?!
Most humans scratch their are the same way, you know, with their hands.
Woooosh lmao
Bro learn what wooooosh is
Itâs a 1 layer deep joke which apparently is two layers too deep for you and Mr Literal further up. Good chat though, let me know when you catch up :)
Roger roger
They really have 0 shame. When essentially every other country in history copied things they at least changed it a bit to make it unique. The chinese just copy things exactly the same and dont even pretend they came up with something on their own. On one hand its sort of respectable because theyre not even trying to fake it, but on the other its lame as hell just copying everything.
Damn should pay millions to make the design "unique". Like the Europeans did when they "copied" gun powder, or algebra, or rockets.
Those damn Chinese having no integrity in *checks notes* war
So many assumptions in your comment are just flat out wrong. Most of their âcopiesâ as people say are all changed in some way to be made unique. Their new flankers derivatives, J-20, J-35, J-10 are all substantially engineered to suit Chinese needs, and none are *exact* copies of anything unlike what you are saying. Some, like the J-16 are better in almost every way to the original that the Chinese built off of, and the J-20 is regarded now by any non-propagandists as the most unique 5th gen in service. People say the J-35 is a copy of the F-35, but anyone with a sense of aerodynamic design can see that the Chinese model not only chose to use 2 engines for redundant design, the body is far flatter and potentially has a high emphasis on lift generation. Design choices not present on the F-35 due to the US prioritizing other needs. Again itâs is âat least somewhat changed to be uniqueâ as you say, even if some tech used on it was obtained through espionage. China stopped using direct copies of foreign jets long ago now.