BEIJING (AFP) - China’s new heavy-lift transport aircraft and a successful missile interception test are key steps in expanding the strength and reach of its armed forces, analysts and state media said Monday.
The Y-20, China’s biggest home-produced military transport jet to date, took to the skies for its maiden flight on Saturday in the northwest of the country, just months after Beijing’s first aircraft carrier entered service.
Pictures showed the bulky green plane - an aircraft that will enable China to project military power across vast distances - soaring into a clear blue sky.  The state-run Global Times hailed the flight of the plane numbered 20001 as a “significant milestone”, saying China needed the aircraft to “enhance its global power projection”.
It will allow China’s military to end its dependence on the Russian-made Il-76, a mainstay of humanitarian and disaster relief around the world, the paper quoted a military expert as saying.
The Y-20 has a maximum payload of 66 tonnes, which it can carry as far as 4,400 kilometres (2,700 miles), the China Daily said, and with 55 tonnes on board it could fly from western China to Cairo.
It is big enough to hold the heaviest tank used by China’s army, the paper added, quoting a military expert as saying that “the heavy air freighters will ensure that we are able to safeguard our interests overseas”. “With them, we can transport our people or large equipment to farther destinations,” said Liang Fang, professor of strategy at the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) National Defence University. The test flight was a “big step” for China’s air force, said Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canadian-based Kanwa Defence Review, but added that the Y-20 was technologically inferior to other military transport planes.