China attempts to copy Hawkeye

China is apparently in the process of building a second, larger aircraft carrier, this one from the ground up. Early evidence shows that this hull will be equipped with a steam catapult system. Possibly to go with this new carrier, there is evidence that they are trying to copy the US built E-2 Hawkeye radar plane.

The E-2 is too large and heavy to fly off the Liaoning, their only carrier so far. The Hawkeye requires a catapult assisted take off, due to the weight. What appears to be the first section of hull for the new carrier, also shows a trench that a steam catapult could fit into.

The Hawkeye is flown by many nations, including Taiwan, which operates them from land bases. Taiwan just announced that they caught a Major in the Taiwanese Air Force, as well as up to 19 others, attempting to sell secrets about the E-2s to China.

Arguably the most valuable and important ship on the deck of a carrier, the E-2 is used to track ships and planes up to several hundred miles away, through a rotating radar mounted on top of the aircraft. Similar to the US Air Force and NATO E-3 Sentry.

In 2011 and 2012 China slowly revealed the JZY-01, which was similar, but larger than the E-2. It has never been made clear what systems or capabilities the JZY-01 has, but apparently they need some help if they're trying to acquire E-2 secrets.

It's still not clear exactly what was leaked, or how damaging it will be.

JZY-01
JZY-01 forward fuselage
JZY-01 tail

E-2 Hawkeye
E-2D Advanced Hawkeye

China’s building a second aircraft carrier—a bigger, more capable flattop to take over from Liaoning, a refurbished Russian vessel that Beijing is using to learn naval aviation fundamentals.

And the new carrier could have a powerful new radar plane, thanks to China’s efforts to copy—and steal—details of the America’s own E-2 Hawkeye early-warning aircraft.

In late October, authorities in Taipei revealed that a major in the Taiwanese air force—part of a ring of up to 20 turncoats—had been caught trying to sell technical data on the E-2 to Chinese agents. Taiwan operates six of the twin-engine E-2s, which feature a large rotating radar dish atop their fuselages for detecting ships and airplanes hundreds of miles away.

medium.com...

medium.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


Not surprising here. If the US flies it, China wants it. What better place than the closest foreign power that relies heavily on US provided hardware to get info from.
Even though Taiwan's E-2's are supposed to be at Hawkeye 2000 levels, I wonder if it was a watered down version of that up-grade? After all it is a sale to a foreign gov. and if so, how much info can China glean from them?

reply to post by Sammamishman


Generally foreign sales aircraft have a lot of the same equipment the US uses, but they also add indigenous equipment, or special requested equipment. So they may be able to learn a lot from them.

They just got upgraded to the E-2K standard. They include a Raytheon MCU, a Lockheed Martin ACIS, SATCOM, new navigation and flight controls, as well as AN/ARC-158 UHFs, AN/ARQ-34 HFs, and a JTIDS. It uses an older AN/APS-138 radar, but there's still a lot that can hurt there.

I couldn't resist:

www.youtube.com...

Good thread Zaphod.
S+F

reply to post by Zaphod58


Bizarrely, from those photos, they appear to have grafted an E-2 style radome and tail onto a truncated An-24. The nose image is definitely An24 based.

China has produced its own version of this for many years so was probably just the closest airframe they had.

I wonder if the systems from Russia's own abandoned Hawkeye-a-like, the Yak 44, have made their way onto this?

China has developed and/or operated 3 EAW aircraft dating back to the single KJ-1 based on the Tu-4 derived from the B-29, the KJ-200 based on the Y-8 transport (An-124 "clone"), and the KJ-2000 based on the Il-76.

The problem with developing a shipborne AEW a/c is likely to be a suitable airframe rather than the AEW systems themselves....although of course taking shortcuts through espionage is a time-honoured tradition worldwide sine the Romans got the scutum, pila, gladius and mail armour from their various neighbours & conquests!

reply to post by waynos


Yeah, it's an interesting looking airframe. It's like they tried to come up with an E-2, and put all the pieces they could see on whatever they had handy.

I read something a year ago that a few Chinese drug traffickers who had connections with the Chinese Govt tried buying a Hawkeye from an undercover. I don't remember all the details but I think they wanted the whole thing shipped back. Damn I tried looking for the article and can't find it. I'll keep looking.

Edit: Found it, was off on some details

Link

reply to post by Laxpla


I wondered how they broke the ring. That's an ambitious plan too. Thanks for the link!