Saturday, January 24, 2015

China's Air Refueling Pod Nearing Completion

While this isn't a Russian bit...I think its an interesting article.  The best is a comment on the blog from one of the Russian followers that says "It would be nice to steal something back from China. But alas, nothing."

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1147664.html

Chinese Development of their UPAZ Copy is almost Complete

According to the Chinese Media, Aerospace Life-Support Industries, Ltd. (AVIC ALA), part of AVIC Electromechanical System Company, the state owned AVIC is estimating that the development of their copy of the Soviet universal suspended refueling unit (УПАЗ - унифицированного подвесного агрегата заправки) is almost complete and that serialized production will start in the near future.

КИТАЙ УПАЗ
J-15, RED 556, with an UPAZ on the centerline, previously published photo from sina.com.cn
AVIC ALA (machine translation only, I don't really read Chinese aviation news!)

AVIC ALA - a company with more than 4,400 employees and is headquartered in the city Sanyan (Hubei Province), established in 2003 through the merger of SRI-610 and serial number of plants 510 and № 520. The main business of the company is the manufacture of ejection seats, parachute systems and other safety equipment, at the same time, in recent years, efforts have been made ​​to expand the business. As noted in the publication, an agreement to establish an analogue ORM and filling hose manufacturer "basic product" - probably - with the end manufacturer of aircraft carriers, Shenyang Aviation Industrial Corporation ( Shenyang Aerospace Corporation) was signed in September 2006. After eight years of work in June 2014 were first performed flight tests of the unit c release filling hose that failed. As a result, we can say that China is one of five countries in the world, with the appropriate technology.

At the recent meeting about the project with the participation of the customer, efforts AVIC ALA was praised. At the same time, there were some suggestions for improvement of the unit. According to the manual AVIC ALA work on the unit is in the final stage and it is left to make a "recent improvements." 

Earlier, in 2014 the Chinese Internet appeared photos Chinese based fighter J-15 analogue ORM. Probably, these aircraft will be the first and perhaps the main carriers of the unit.

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