Chinese Helicopter Market

China to Buy 500 Mi-26T Heavy Helicopters



China’s air fleet will be filled with 10,000 helicopters before 2020. Of them, from three to five percent will be Mi-26T heavy helicopters. The joint Rostvertol Helicopters China ((all three words in English)) enterprise will produce and sell the aircraft on the Chinese market, they reported to Interfax-AVN at the Farnborough-2006 air salon which has opened in Great Britain.

The headquarters of the aviation giant, which was created by merging Rostvertol and the Chinese company Lektern Aviation ((in English)), will be based in Hong Kong. The Rostvertol Helicopters China registration process is supposed to be completed before this October. The Chinese, according a Russian delegation representative at the Farnborough air salon, are pursuing one goal: to sell actively Mi-26T helicopters which have the greatest lift capacity in the world. It is worth noting that Rostvertol specialists already have held a number of presentations in China and for China in Rostov. An agreement already has been signed about leasing one Mi-26T helicopter for 3 years. It is against this background the state company Feylun (Flying Dragon) expressed interest in the fire-fighting variant of this aircraft. It is expected that the Rostov plant will sign the next contract with China for the delivery of two more helicopters.

Source: 18.07.06, Ekho Moskvy

According to most reports released, chinas helicopter market place is in for a big expansion. Currently, chinas helicopter fleet for the entire country is around 900 and by 2020 should reach 10,000. Because of chinas massive expansion of its economy since 1979 china has opened up more and its citizens have been persuaded to make money in the capitalist manner. "To get rich is gloriou"s was a slogan used by Deng Xiao Ping and owning a helicopter would be a great mark of wealth





[edit on 16-10-2006 by chinawhite]

China signed a cooperation deal with the European helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter for the development of a new civil aircraft.

The deal was signed in Paris during a visit to France by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

The new 16-seater helicopter named the EC175 will go into development in 2006 and production is due to start in 2011, Eurocopter -- a subsidiary of the European consortium EADS -- said in a statement.

Eurocopter and the Chinese company ACIC II will each invest 300 million euros (352 million dollars) to develop the new helicopter, the statement said.

"Production will be shared on a 50/50 basis and each country will have its own assembly line. Sales forecasts for this latest-generation helicopter call for 800 to be sold worldwide over the next 20 years," it said.

Eurocopter factory in Marignane, France. China signed a cooperation deal with the European helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter for the development of a new civil aircraft.(AFP/File/Gerard Julien)
Yahoo News

Known as the Z-15 in China it will be in the 6,000kg class

China to manufacture EC120 helicopter

China is expected to manufacture advanced EC120 helicopters in the near future, said a high ranking official with the Hafei Aviation Industry Co., ltd. Tuesday in Harbin.

"It has been approved in principle to let us build a new assembly line to manufacture EC120 helicopter outside France," said Qu Jingwen, general manager of the company.

Qu said the company was discussing with Euro Copter and the China Aviation Technology Import and Export Corporation the detailed technology and the procedure of obtaining airworthiness licenses. A written agreement is expected to be signed by the end of this year and the first aircraft is expected to roll off line by the end of 2004.

The EC120 is a five-seat light helicopter. It was designed jointly by Euro Copter, China Aviation Technology Import and Export Corporation, Harbin Aviation Industry Co. ltd and SingaporeTechnology Airspace Industry Corporation, in 1990.
Source

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

Current chinese helicopters

Four Mi-17 variants(Mi-17, Mi-171, Mi-17V-5, Mi-17V-7) with over 200+ in service

Larger Image

Z-9 (licensed produced Dauphin II) with over 200+ produced

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Z-11 over 40+ in the chinese military

Larger Image

24 BlackHawks brought from America

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Wow, from 900 to 20,000 helos in 2020. These heavy helicopters will definitely come in handy for a Taiwan invasion, overwhelming the island's air and coastal defenses with sheer number of aircraft and ships.

Now Taiwan really needs to go through with their stalled procurement of those PAC-3 and still ask for more.

China was really lacking in the heavy attack helo dept but that seems to have addressed with the WZ-10?..

My dear friends!
Now we know up to Z-15, we've already know Z-11 factually is Ecureuil, then may be that EC-120 numbered Z-12, so we still lost Z-13 and Z-14?!

Did Franch do some stupid things? I think that NH-90 also is 6ton class Helicopter, that will being confliction with Z-15 in international market.

[edit on 19-10-2006 by emile]

WZ-10

Originally posted by emile
...
Did Franch do some stupid things? I think that NH-90 also is 6ton class Helicopter, that will being confliction with Z-15 in international market.

...

Not really. Doesnt really matter which one sells better when France has its hands in both, hmmm? And both helicopters can be expected to sell profoundly enough to cover their development costs. If I am not mistaken the current NH90 orders already covered the development costs multiple times.

Nevertheless, and I can only judge from the pics and the small article, I do not think they are competing in the same market. The Z-15 is a 16-seater, the NH90 can have 23 seats. The Z-15 seems to be a civilian model with a possible military refit; the NH90 is a military plane from the start (which allows) for some of the compromises necessary for a civil/military helicopter to be avoided - the clamshell doors of the NH90 are obviously not possible with this current Z-15 layout. Third, I guess it will be a LONG time since any western foce takes to political risk and buys chinese-developed military gear - so they don´t really share the same market. And even if they did, the NH90 at 18-30 million €/piece is certainly in an entirely different price segment.

WZ-10

The new helicopter seems to be in the class of the Tiger, Mongoose and Rooivalk. The picture shows it carrying four ATGM on each side. The type of ATGM is unknown thus far but it has a possbile choice of three missiles. HJ-9, HJ-8 or a new development missile called the HJ-10 which is said to be the equivalent of the american hellfire. At this momment, the chinese airforce lacks a proper attack helicopter which is one of the reasons the chinese military has adapted many WZ-9s into simple attack helicopters with few missiles and protection for the crew.

From the lack of any serious ground threat to mainland china its main purpose would be in the taiwanese threater where it could uses it firepower and mobility for hit and run attacks on the taiwanese coast

The main purpose would be a cross strait invasion where it can use its low cruising altitude to go across the strait undetected. On the taiwanese cost it could use its ATGM and cannon fire to get rid of obstacles like bunkers and taiwanese ground forces so the landing craft are not as freely targeted by the fixed defences

One very possible weapon that could be used is a FAE weapon for mine clearing to or to destroy ground defenses or sea obstacles before the main invasion fleet arrives so a safe corridor can be formed for the lightly armoured landing craft. China already has man-portable FAE weapons and has fitted some to ballistic missiles. The man-portable ones can be re-fitted on a helicopter and use its area effect capability to silence a large area

Armaments
- One 30mm chin mounted cannon
- 8 ATGM
- possible ECM suite
- Five-blade main rotor and four-blade tail rotor
- Possible QW-XX(?) helicopter killer variant AAM
- Rocket pods

The Tiger has a combat range of 800km and the Rooivalk has a range of 700km so the WZ-10 should be in the same class. Leave out 300km for its intial trip there and 300km for the trip back. So it would leave about 200km or 100km for the WZ-10 depending on performace. So range wouldn't be much of a problem

A group of about 20 WZ-10 try to skim the water and try not to be detected because taiwan has a unknown EW system which might not be able to detect low-flying aircraft. They expend all their munitions and then head back while a new group of helicopters that had been lanuched 20mins after the first group to continue the attack and provide continuous cover
Here is the 30mm cannon at a chinese weapons expo


WZ-10 millimeter wave radar

what do you mean by 24 blackhawks "brough" from america? How the hell did they get to china?

^^

Haha..


What is the maximum operating altitude for the WZ-10 cw?

Originally posted by semperfoo
what do you mean by 24 blackhawks "brough" from america? How the hell did they get to china?

I guess they got there by ship

Now serious:
Reagans USA sold them in the mid-80s when the chinese were already opening up thanks to the great Deng Xiaoping, while the soviets still were THE threat. One has to remember that the Chinese and the Soviets never were friends exactly.

[edit on 30/3/2007 by Lonestar24]

Originally posted by Daedalus3
What is the maximum operating altitude for the WZ-10 cw?

Unknown like most Chinese military projects but one can assume it operates well at the Chengdu testing facility which is quite elevated. I wouldn't think anything higher than the Tibetan plateau

damn thats a impresive fleet

question about the black hawks
doesnt the US have an arms imbargo on china?

Originally posted by bodrul
damn thats a impresive fleet

question about the black hawks
doesnt the US have an arms imbargo on china?

exactly what I thought.

Lonestar said that it was back in the mid 80's that these choppers were sold to china.

Did Franch do some stupid things? I think that NH-90 also is 6ton class Helicopter, that will being confliction with Z-15 in international market.

[edit on 19-10-2006 by emile]

you are absolutely correct why dont china just license build the NH 90.
nh90
NH90 wiki

Just straight into production no development costs at all.

The NH90 is a 10 ton class helicopter

the Z-15 is a 6 ton class helicopter like the Bell Augusta AB139

From other phots which I have seen of the Wz-10 it in fact appears to be a copy of the South African Rooivalk (based upon the Puma) with copies of the laser guided Isreali NT anti-tank missile (range 5-6km).

A larger picture can be found Here