A KJ-500 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) of Pakistan Air Force
The KJ-500 first flew in 2013 and entered service in 2015. But until 2017 only two were known to be in service. Now there are ten of them. This is not unusual for Chinese ships and aircraft, with one or a few entering service and for several years, sometimes a decade or more, no more are produced. In the meantime China is tinkering with the new equipment under operational conditions and compiling a list of changes to the initial design before producing a lot of them.
The KJ-500 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) can track over 60 aircraft at ranges of up to 470 kilometers. The KJ-500 aircraft looks more like the American AWACS (with a round radar dome on top) but is smaller and carried by the Y-9 four engine turboprop aircraft (similar to the U.S. C-130). The circular radar dome of the KJ-500 actually contains a triangular AESA radar that does not rotate.
The earlier and very similar KJ-200 design used the smaller (but shorter) Y-8 aircraft and a long box-like Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar array on top of the aircraft. The KJ-500 was thought to be created to supplement and eventually replace the eleven KJ-200 (also called the KJ-2000) that has been in service since 2005. There are also four of the export model (ZDK-03) KJ-500s in Pakistan that sold for $300 million and were believed to be KJ-200 variants.
China has been developing its own AWACS since the 1990s, ever since the U.S. forced Israel to back off selling China the Phalcon AWACS (because it used some American technology). China then bought some AWACS from Russia, while hustling to develop their own. The Chinese Air Force was not happy with its four IL-76 AWACS (A-50s from Russia, converted to use Chinese KJ-200 radar systems) and smaller systems carried in the Chinese made Y-8 aircraft. The Chinese claim that their phased array AWACS is similar to, and superior in some respects, to the Phalcon AESA radar they tried to buy from the Israelis. The Chinese were to pay about the same price for each of the four Phalcon systems they sought to get from Israel that they are charging Pakistan. It turned out that China had not been able to clone the Phalcon system completely.
The KJ-200 carries a flight crew of five and a mission (AWACS) crew of about a dozen. The KJ-500 crew is believed to be about the same size. Both aircraft can stay airborne for about seven hours per sortie. The KJ-200 radar has a range of about 300 kilometers, and the computer systems are supposed to be able to handle 5-10 fighters at a time and keep track of several dozen enemy targets. The 54 ton propeller driven Y-8 is based on the 1950s era Russian An-12 as is the Y-9 which is a more recent (2001) design that is a bit larger and heavier (77 tons) and is basically a stretched (longer) Y-8. China apparently believes that the KJ-500 is a competitive (with Western models) AWACS. (Adapted From SP & www.cjdby.net)
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