The amphibious aircraft will have an upper operational range of 5000 km and will be able to land in most large open waters. These factors make it well suited for emergency operations such as large scale rescue missions for sea disasters and providing resources to emergencies that would otherwise be difficult to reach in a short window of time.
With its ability to land in the sea, the TA-600 will be perfect for firefighting missions such as large forest fires. The plane can land in the water, collect a large payload and dump it on the fire with ease.
If the plane succeeds testing late next year it will go into operational shortly after. CAIGA general manager Fu Junxu was quoted by Xinhua as saying: “After a period of trial flights, the aircraft will be put onto the market.” It will knock Japan’s ShinMaywa US-2 short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft off the top spot as the largest of its kind globally. It’s even larger than a Boeing 737. Technically however, it won’t be the largest sea plane ever built.
The eight-engined Hughes H-4 ‘Spruce Goose’, the largest seaplane ever built, weighed 180 tons in full and had a wingspan of 97 meters. It made its only flight back in November, 1947 but the project never advanced beyond this. Fun fact: it was partly constructed of wood.
A TA-600 model was first shown at the 2010 Zhuhai Airshow, back in 2010, and CAIGA have been working on the design for the past 5 years. Recently, a full scale mockup of the cockpit was put on display at the AVIC factory, manufacturers of the sea plane. It will be great to see if China can deliver by the end of next year, as they continue to show off more and more engineering feats.
culled from here
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