I am fascinated in what they expect a prop driven, non-stealth, much slower than an F-22 fighter or missiles to do. It takes off and goes to another location with absolutely no cover to do what? And it is visible on Pave Paws far before it reaches altitude. At least during the time of the spruce goose, there were no jet transport aircraft in existence and it was a worthless novelty.
My congratulations to China. They just reinvented the white buffalo. Wonder how many body parts it took to fund it?
red
Probably the same thing we expect a C130 to do - go up in a ball of flame. Big pigs in the sky (I see them weekly, as I live near Naval Base Ventura County and the 146th Air Wing who flies several C130s). This is a transport and firefighting plane. Believe it or not there is a pretty decent worldwide market for amphibious cargo planes and firefighting planes, not to mention many 3rd and 2nd world nations who need lumbering transports for their own military - and amphibious capability is attractive to many of them (who have lots of rivers, lakes, or are multi-island nations).
Sure, it could have military implications - as we've seen, a Cessna 172 can have military/terror applications. But perhaps this is just an amphibious cargo/firefighting plane... Just China testing out the waters as it moves into the aerospace industry as its own force, rather than a pawn of Boeing and Airbus.
Take off from China fly five feet above the water to Taiwan. Not exactly stealth but damn near it.