AEW&C / AWACS aircrafts are a vital part of any modern Air Force and China had a clear deficit of aircrafts of this type. In 2005 the KJ-2000 “Mainring”, (according to NATO designation), was presented after numerous development problems and the cancellation of a joint program with Israel and Russia.The basis for the KJ-2000 is the Russian Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft manufactured in China under license. Faced with the problems with the KJ-2000, China put into service a simplified model based on the Shaanxi Y-8 transport aircraft and designated as KJ-200 or Y-8 “Balance Beam”, with a less powerful radar and turboprops engines.The Mainring‘s radar is a multi-function, three-dimensional pulse-Doppler with three phased arrays installed inside a radome of 14 meters in diameter. Each phased array covers a sector of 120º up to 470 km of range, though it is believed that the system could detect ballistic missiles at 1,200 km. The People’s Liberation Air Force (PLAF) had four KJ-2000s in service at the end of 2017. They are deployed in an AWACS regiment based in a small South China air base along with some KJ-200s AEW&C aircrafts.
