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On December 24, China’s first domestic large amphibious aircraft made a maiden flight in the province of Guangdong, according to the state-run website China Military.
The aircraft AG600, code named “Kunlong” took off from Jinwan airport in the city of Zhuhai. The flight lasted about an hour.
“The maiden flight makes China among the few countries capable of developing a large amphibious aircraft,” China Military quoted Huang Lingcai, chief designer of AG600.
The AG600 is a 39.6-meter long. It is powered by four domestically-built turboprop engines and has a maximum take-off weight of 53.5 tonnes. The AG600’s top cruising speed is 500 kilometers per hour.
The AG600 is intended to be used for maritime rescue, fighting forest fires and marine monitoring. The aircraft can carry 50 people during search-and-rescue missions and transport up to 370 tonnes of water on a single tank of fuel.
The AG600 is the third member of China’s “large aircraft family”. The previous two were the large freighter Y-20 and large passenger aircraft C919.
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370 tons of watert? a technical an-alphabet has written the article
Considering it has a maximum take-off weight of 53.5 tonnes, that would be unbelievable. Literally. That would be 370,000 liters if water.
That a lot of water ! I read that it could drop 12 tons of water. But the article did state on a single tank of fuel, that’s 37 sorties between the water source and fire ! The math may work out if the ocean is within 10km of the fire :D
Would they use saltwater over a land fire? Salting the earth would be destructive. Season’s Greetings.
Given that the USSR survived German military invasion by out-producing Germany, the capacity of China to produce a vast quantity of these airlife planes speaks of her capacity to survive military contests.
California should buy a few.