Q6

Q6 can refer to:

Nanchang Q-6

The Nanchang Q-6 (Chinese: 強-6; pinyin: Qiang-6) is a cancelled ground attack aircraft of the People's Republic of China (PRC), with the Nanchang Aircraft Factory (later reorganized into Hongdu Aviation Industry Group) as the prime contractor. The project never went beyond the prototype stage, despite a prolonged development.

Background

The Q-6 program was initiated in the mid-1970s when during the Battle of the Paracel Islands in 1974, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) proved incapable of ground support missions. Although the South Vietnamese claimed that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had bombed the South Vietnamese forces on the three disputed islands, this was in fact not true. In reality, despite the Chinese intent to do so with the deployment of 115 aircraft which flew 401 sorties in support of the battle, none of the Chinese aircraft deployed actually attacked enemy positions.

Due to the lack of modern avionics and ground infrastructure to support a modern air war, Chinese aircraft suffered navigation and other logistics problems that severely limited their performance. The first Chinese aircraft did not actually reach the islands until several hours after the battle was over. In addition to the need to upgrade its logistics capability and infrastructure, China also decided that nothing-in-its-then-aircraft-inventory could fill the requirement for support missions in the South China Sea. Fighters such as the J-5, J-6, J-7, and J-8 lacked a ground attack capability and were hampered by short range. The only Chinese ground attack aircraft Nanchang Q-5 was also short ranged and had a low payload. China's bombers such as the Harbin H-5 and Xian H-6 were slow and lacked a self-defense capability. A new aircraft was therefore seen as desperately needed to fulfill a new naval strike mission in support of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).