Xi'an H-6 - The first of many

MightyBaozi · September 26, 2024, 10:09pm

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Xi’an H-6

PLAAF

Background and History

Spoiler

The origins of the Xi’an H-6 and the Tu-16 Badger:
The program was born after the success of other long range bombers that defined the role of these heavy aircraft and was aimed at delivering a successor to the Tu-4. The aircraft was designated in two different ways, Tu-16 for the Russians and Xi’an H-6 for the Chinese. In early 1956 the Soviet government was more than happy to help China build a fleet of medium-bombers with the goal of leading a nuclear capable fleet that would ultimately be under the Soviet guidance. This eventually never happened since China wasn’t happy with that, but it initially provided for the first steps needed for China to set up a proper manufacturing base for such a massive aircraft.

Technology transfer and production:
China was in dire need of Soviet help when it came to the project and, as in many other cases, the Soviets delivered with plenty of help both in terms of technology and by setting up the industry to manufacture such an aircraft. China had, at the time, quite a young manufacturing and industry base, meaning that the Soviet guidance was without any doubts required for the project to stay alive.
The first agreement was to construct the first assembly line for the H-6 in Harbin and to provide all the technical documentation for it. The first two Soviet built Badgers were delivered to China in 1959, acting as a pattern aircraft, then the third one eventually became the first Chinese built H-6 as a prototype thanks to a kit that was sent to them alongside the help of specialists from the Kazan factory No. 22. By the time the first airworthy aircraft was being produced, China decided to send roughly 200 additional qualified workers from Shenyang to give additional help.

A detailed look at the rough construction numbers give us quite an understanding at how important and difficult this, so far, trouble-free project really was.
The program required massive modifications to the manufacturing plants and the addition of new assembly lines, needed for the astonishing production of 240.000 parts per unit. Some data shows that the construction required 148 tons of raw materials, 25 km of cables and 2 km of pipes.

As part of the technology transfer the engines were also included with the delivery and consequent production under license of the RD-3M-500 engines, later renamed to WP-8 at the Xi’an Engine Factory.
The first flight was taken by a hybrid between a Tu-16T and A version on the 27th of September 1959, with the second one coming short after.

The moving incident:
As said above, up until the first few flights the program continued without any major problems, but then China decided to move THE ENTIRE production line to the Xi’an Aircraft Factory to let the Harbin institute work on the H-5, the reverse engineered Il-28 that we already have in game.
Problems rose up, and not just the obvious stuff. As expected, moving and entire manufacturing line to a city almost 2000 km far was quite troublesome but that wasn’t even the main issue. In fact, during the transport it was said that a decent amount of documentation disappeared, with China giving the blame to the Soviets. This led to the need of reverse engineering the 2 Soviet produced Tu-16s and led to the inclusion of more Western-like manufacturing techniques to cope with the need of a more precise level of accuracy needed. Under the influence of Chief Engineer Lu Songshan, the use optical telescopes and micrometers was incorporated.