The four-engine Gaoxin-6, which was developed and manufactured by Aviation Industry Corp of China based on the Y-8 transport plane, has been delivered to the Beihai - or North Sea - Fleet of the People's Liberation Army navy, about three years after the type was first revealed in late 2011, according to a recent report in IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, a United Kingdom-based weapon technology publication.
The aircraft can easily be distinguished from other Y-8 variants by its large sea-search radar, mounted below the cockpit, and the magnetic anomaly detector boom that looks like a metal tail.
It is China's first large aircraft specifically designed for anti-submarine warfare, making the country the sixth nation that has the development capability for such a sophisticated plane. The others are the United States, Russia, Japan, the UK and France.
The most-deployed anti-submarine aircraft is the US' Lockheed P-3C Orion, which often appears in naval confrontations between the US and China. Almost all US allies have P-3Cs as the backbone of their anti-submarine forces.
Earlier reports by Chinese media said the Gaoxin-6, with a crew of up to 10, is capable of flying 6,000 kilometers or staying in the air for more than eight hours.
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