By Ankit Panda
With the commissioning of the Gaoxin-6, the PLAN’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities receive a major boost.
After years of development, China’s Gaoxin-6, a four-engine, fixed-wing, anti-submarine patrol aircraft, was commissioned into the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) North Sea Fleet. The aircraft will be a major boon to the PLAN’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities, a neglected area despite China’s broader naval modernization. The Gaoxin-6 is, in essence, a heavily modified Shaanxi Y-8 transport aircraft and reports over the years have noted that China’s goal with this aircraft was to emulate the form and function of the United States’ Lockheed P-3C Orion patrol aircraft, the most widely deployed anti-submarine aircraft in the world. The Gaoxin-6′s commissioning, along with China’s growing fleet of anti-submarine corvettes (specifically, the Type 056 Jiangdao-class), marks a milestone in the PLAN’s ASW capabilities.
The Gaoxin-6 was developed by Shaanxi Aircraft Industry Corporation. It boasts a 6,000 km range and over eight hours of uninterrupted flight time. The aircraft’s two most notable features that set it apart from other Y-8 variants include its sea-search radar, mounted just under the cockpit, and its rear magnetic anomaly detector. The Gaoxin-6 does feature a bomb bay, but it is unclear precisely how much and what types of ordnance it is capable of delivering. The P-3C, by comparison, can carry 20,000 pounds of ordnance, including Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Maverick air-to-ground missiles. According to China Daily, the Gaoxin-6′s commissioning brings China into a club of five other nations that operate similarly sophisticated anti-submarine warfare ISR aircraft: the United States, Russia, Japan, the UK and France. A long-range anti-submarine ISR capability is critical for the Chinese navy’s blue-water ambitions. Without an ability to detect submarines in unfamiliar waters, the PLAN’s surface vessels would remain immensely vulnerable to hostile submarines.
Read the full story at The Diplomat