Air force to get domestically built transport plane

China's Defense Ministry confirmed Thursday that the country is developing a large military transport aircraft, a ministry spokesman said.

"We are developing a large aircraft to improve the capability of air transport," said ministry's spokesperson Yang Yujun at a news briefing.

The plane is being developed to as part of the military modernization drive, as well as to meet the demands of disaster relief work and humanitarian aid in emergency situations, he added.

Large military transport aircraft are generally defined in China as military transport aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of about 200 tons and 50 tons of payload capacity.

Yang did not give a detailed timeline for the development of the plane, only saying "the research and development of the large transport aircraft is going forward as planned."

The first batch of photos of the "Y-20" were uploaded to the military forum cjdby.net on Christmas Day.

"The photos are small and blurring, but they seem to be authentic," Daniel Tong, a defense observer and the founder of the well-known website Chinese Military Aviation, told the Global Times.

"The layout of the Y-20 bears some resemblance to the US C-17 and Russian Il-76 aircraft. Judging from the nacelle, the engines appeared to be from Russia, though a domestic engine of the same class is been developed," he said.

"China's aerial strategic delivery capability heavily depends on imported IL-76, the number of which is limited. If the Y-20 program goes well, it will lessen and eventually end this dependence," he said, adding that the Y-20 looks fatter than the IL-76 and probably can carry a larger payload.

Qin Zhen, a military expert from the Ordnance Knowledge magazine, told Hubei Satellite Television on Wednesday that the large transport aircraft is a symbol of technological advance.