By On June 8, the Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced it had for the first time identified a new type of Y-9 intelligence gathering aircraft of the Chinese military approaching Japan’s airspace south of Sakishima Islands in Okinawa prefecture, which is also to the east of Taiwan.
The MoD released an image of the aircraft on June 8. More than a few China military experts have identified the new aircraft as the Shaanxi Aircraft Industry Corporation (SAIC) Y-9DZ aircraft, also known as the Y-8GX-12. The aircraft is China’s newly developed electronic warfare (EW) version of the Y-9 aircraft, succeeding the Y-8 medium transport aircraft.
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)’s state-of-the-art electronic reconnaissance aircraft, the Y-9DZ was first photographed by satellite at the Flight Test and Research Institute (CFTE) in Xi’an in November 2017. It is China’s latest multipurpose electronic warfare aircraft.
Japan’s photograph of the aircraft, from the port side, shows some additional details. Most notably, unlike previous Y-9 variants, on the Y-9DZ a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antenna is installed underneath the forward fuselage to provide high-resolution ground mapping images.