China Tests New Military Helicopter Gunship

[SABRE]

China has carried out its first test flight of a new helicopter gunship that is to help propel the People’s Liberation Army into the 21st century, state media said Dec. 28.

The Zhi-11, an armed version of a civilian series of the same name, was tested at Lumeng airport in eastern China’s Jiangxi province Dec. 27, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The test flight took place on the same day that the Chinese government issued a defense white paper stressing the need to modernize the armed forces.

The Zhi-11 helicopter passed official appraisal four years ago and research on an armed military version began in early 2004, according to Xinhua.

LinK: http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/article_002045.shtmlhttp://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=573489&C=airwar

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Does any one has any specs of this GunShip? & also compare it to the Russian ones.

 

[P.A.F]

is this it???
http://gallery.muzi.com/pfg/english/1004711.shtml?pfm=10067644

 

[SABRE]

Judging by the image it doesnt seem too much of a gunship. Cant stand amongst the Russians. & doesnt seem like a next gen technology.

Where r the specs?

 

[P.A.F]

couldn't find any

 

[gf0012-aust]

It's a chinese modification of an EC120 Colibri. It's a French helicopter.

I've ridden in one, and they are quite an energetic little machine.

 

[P.A.F]

http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/aircraft/helicopter/z11.asp

Z-11 Utility Helicopter
NAME: PLA Official Designation: Zhisheng-11 or Zhi-11
TYPE: Multimission lightweight helicopter
MANUFACTURER: Changhe Aircraft Industry Corporation (CHAIC)
PROGRAMME
The Z-11 is a Chinese copy of French AS 350B 'Squirrel' light helicopter, which was developed in the early 1970s. The Z-11 programme was officially approved in 1989 and the development began in 1992. The first flight of the Z-11 took place in Dec 1994.
The Z-11 is designed for training, scout, liaison and rescue, as well as various civil missions. Although being described by the manufacturer as 'multi-mission', the future of the helicopter remains gloomy due to its limited take-off weight, insufficient armament, low survivability, and outdated technology. So far the PLA has only ordered few (no more than 20) Z-11s for pilot training.
DESIGN FEATURES
The Z-11 is two-ton class six-seater lightweight helicopter. The three-blade main rotor is mounted above center of fuselage. A single turboshaft engine is mounted inside the body with air intakes on top of the cabin and a blackhole exhaust.
The fuselage is teardrop-shaped, which features a round, glassed-in cockpit and landing skids. The tail boom tapers from the main body to the swept-back, tapered fin with a rotor on the right. Two flats are mounted on the both side of the boom.
POWER PLANT: One WZ-8D turboshafts rated at 450 kW
WEAPONS: None, but could be fitted with machine gun or rocket launchers with slight modifications.
AVIONICS: Basic radio communication and navigation equipment
PERFORMANCE
Flight crew: One
Length (Without rotors): 13.012 m
Height (Without rotors): 3.14 m
Blades: Main rotor 3; tail rotor 2
Empty weight: 1,120 kg
Normal take-off weight: 2,000 kg
Maximum take-off weight: 2,200 kg
Passenger: Five
Maximum speed: 278 km/h
Cruising speed: 220~240 km/h
Service ceiling: 5,240 m
Hover ceiling (out of ground effect): 2,930 m
Hover ceiling (in ground effect): 3,700 m
Range: 560 km
Flight endurance: 3.7 hours

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thats all i could find on the z-11

 

[gf0012-aust]

The Z-11 is a Chinese copy of French AS 350B 'Squirrel' light helicopter, which was developed in the early 1970s.

The EC120 traces its legacy to the Squirrel. The Australian Navy has Squirrels as LOH's.

 

[SABRE]

It's a chinese modification of an EC120 Colibri. It's a French helicopter.

I've ridden in one, and they are quite an energetic little machine.

Every thing Pakistan & China has is upgrade of some one else's product & than when we modify it we come up sayin we made it & its the best in the world.

 

[Superbug]

Is this really what China is looking to carry this infantry into the century? I thought they were working on Z-10 and facing various difficulties, when will it should be revealed or inducted?

Z-11 looks more like a utility helicopter, rather than an attack helicopter.

 

[corsair7772]

Whatever happened to the Z-9? :?

Thats the chinese version of the Dauphin and its partially indigenised as well with the process proceeding normally. And its way better than the Z-11 which is a light helicopter where as the Z-9 is a medium.

 

[arjun]

any one have pic of new devlop ment ? indian lch look better then this more huge and more armed

 

[P.A.F]

Whatever happened to the Z-9? :?

the pakistani navy are getting them for there jiangwei frigates. so there still in business.

 

[Salman78]

"China Tests New Military Helicopter Gunship"

New ???? It's hardly a new helicopter.. It was first flown in 1994

Gunship ??? You are joking rite ?

Military ??? It's a UTILITY helicopter which can be converted into a secondary light attact helicopter.

http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/aircraft/helicopter/z11.asp

Arjun, i posted a couple of pics and now a link. you can check it out there,

 

[arjun]

silly jock who had submited this thread ?
must be a jocker. if it is true give links and pic.

 

[Pendekar]

It's a light observation heli just like fennec or kiowa. no doubt it can be arm but i doubt it can be a true gunship. it's not even look's like it was armoured.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

>>
It's a light observation heli just like fennec or kiowa. no doubt it can be arm but i doubt it can be a true gunship. it's not even look's like it was armoured.
>>

Depends on how you look at it.

Few would know what an OH-58 even is but you say 'cop copter' and they will automatically visualize the Bell 206 Jetranger.

Same goes for the OH-6 Cayuse, the 'other' LOH competitor from the late 60's. Ask someone about the 'egg helo' and they will automatically come back with the Hughes-500 series.

BIG civillian associations with what are in fact little more than liason helos (albeit both armed from the outset with the M28 weapons sponson) in military duty.

THAT is where the money is.

On a similar note, there is no one in the helo industry who didn't see that the LHX-UTILs downfall was the first step on the slippery slope of doom for the LHX-SCAT model because you just can't /do/ anything with a tandem helo but if you give up stealth and upper/lower hemisphere faceting, the combination of composites, twin engines and a fat forward fuselage can really get you in the door with what has since been lost to the likes of the AS-565, Bell-212 and BK-117 (high altitude and medevac among others).

Lastly, NOBODY has the 'right idea' for a rotary wing platform these days. Not a single company.

You want:

1. A fat X long forward fuselage.
So that you can put in either a 4-7 passenger cabin. Or a long weapons bay.
2. A lifting wing.
So that you can optimize blade design (essentially broadchoard ala 'paddle blade') towards lowspeed lift and either stop it or unload it to enter the 200+ knot realm without RBS. This gives you high altitude performance, the ability to serve on small intercity routes as an executive, news or police/medevac chopper without fuel worries and hub-stepup to twins.
3. Compound Propulsion.
Believe it or not, a clean-faced (S-76 or A-109) is /vastly/ more aerodynamic than any sprouting-excrescences AH and when combined with decent forward=forward-not-tilted-down-and-back propulsion, can readily out run them. The fastest airframes in the world are the Lynx with BURP and Mi-24, stripped down 'cabin cruisers'.
Militarily, speed is the ONLY way you can 'get out from under' the overarching threat levels of mobile artillery and TBMs likely to be found on the deep/scattered battlefield. As such weapons deny you the typical FARP style basing modes within 100km of any 'frontline'.
Similarly, at the 'urban level' operations over a dense trashfire envelope where you cannot afford to slow down every time you climb will become paramount 'gotta have' performance drivers. And there is simply no way for a conventional helo (however much power it has) to achieve this.
As a scout, compounds also grant the means to reenergize long range patrol-as-sanitization battlespace sensor (i.e. 'scouting') coverage which is originally what the RAH-66 was -supposed- to do, as a companion for the AH-64. Sticking with the penny-farthing propulsion layout ruined even the SCAT model LHX as 'anything new or different' from the Apache whereas the BAT (Bell Attack Tiltrotor) and even some of the ABC+Ringtail VTDP concepts like the XH-59 and the original McDonnell NOTAR+ design all had significant cruise speed advantages as the performance envelope design optimizer around which stealth was -paid for-.
And thus these 'too unconventional' (can we say Cheyenne Gun Shy?) designs were the only ones which showed enough promise to bring rotary wing capabilities into the 21st century.
3. Limited external windows + visionics.
Obviously for stealth reasons but also for sealing the airframe against HMP and laser attack while maintaining the simplest of all possible structural constructs in manufacture and loadbearing terms. Indeed, there is no particular reason not to go with something like the SHADOW (S-76 cockpit ergonomics design) and simply give the pilot an HMDS with linked DAS or Falcon Knight equivalent synthetic aperture vision. I _guarantee you_ that synthetic vision is superior to any living pilot's eyesight for both 'color' choices on signatures and 'depth perception'.
4. OTH LOAL Weapons of minimum 20-30km reach.
There is no reason to go over the Hellfire munition size (roughly 110lbs) for reach but there is equally NO EXCUSE to risk a 20-35 million dollar attack platform to everyday bullets. Indeed the sighting apertures on most attack helicopters are 4-5 million dollar investments located _exactly_ where you would expect a threat to 'shoot the glass out' and this, plus the utterly unnecessary cannon capability not only compromise aerodynamic design but also the structural and volumetric placement of systems on the airframe. Additionally, if you move to a _60_km weapons range, then you can start to consider 'virtual stealth' as a function of 500-1,500ft penetration altitudes (i.e. an instant 80% off the top of CFIT and wire problems) and simply use drop fire ejector clearances from a central weapons bay.

CONCLUSION:
IMO, the helos of tomorrow will be less hummingbirds and more VTOL airplanes in that they will neither need nor benefit from any marked agility in the on-cushion mode of 0-60 knots airspeed. But will rather tend to be a complex of shared engines and avionics systems around which you will see mission specific airframes constructed. An airframe which looked like a miniature CH-54 with a VTDP 'fold away' backend could, for instance, take entire platoons of Hummer or Shadow type vehicles in openair step ramps (locking the vehicle against the upperfuselage frame clamps) while having roughly the same installed horsepower as a Bell 212 (1,200shp T802s X2). While another variant of the same airframe (right down to a common-cockpit 'nose pod') might have a fully enclosed central fuselage to serve as something like a light utility bird. And another might have the same body but strip the centercabin for a WSO and a weapons bay. ALL having 200-250 knot minimum forward airspeed capabilities and ALL designed to operate over a combat radius at least 'competitive' (for weight and lbs fuel) with the fixed wing jets they share the OOTW and SSC/MRC world (the enemy all about you but as much as 200-300nm between theater battlefield areas) with.


KP

 

[vick]

We should wait for the actual gunship, that will be revealed by the Chinese in few years time.

 

[dcvergara]

dont see the pics.where is it ?

 

[doggychow14]

I think he means the z-10. I think i read somewhere it has been tested already, but no pictures are out. I'm not sure i'm right.

 

[SABRE]

silly jock who had submited this thread ?
must be a jocker. if it is true give links and pic.

I Guess it is u, who must be joking !!!!

I posted the news link in the first post & pic's link in 3rd post of the thread PS Salman78 posted two pics as well, just above ur post. U better learn to go back to 1st pages if u dnt understand whats going on & also c the post by others properly.
Every thing is there !