Chinese Aviation Industry

vesicles said:

Maybe it is not a blade at all. It may be something they placed underneath the chopper when they work on it. Some kind of towing device, maybe? It would be difficult to distinguish something underneath the chopper from something placed on top of it from that far up...

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But how would you expain the shadow of the "blades"?

It could be that the mechanism is such that as the blade folds downward, it also goes sideway. What we are seeing are the 5 blades being folded at different angles.

duncanidaho said:

But how would you expain the shadow of the "blades"?

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Objects placed on the ground also have shadows. With the satellite that high up, there is no way we can judge the vertical position of the blades by looking at the shadow. The difference in the thickness of the shadow between the actual blades and an object on the ground is negligible to the satellite. The vertical position of objects is the most difficult to judge by something/someone located above and looking down. I have experienced this first-hand. It's easy to position cells in the X-Y plane under a high-powered microscope. On the Z-axis? Almost impossible. I have to use a device to actually poke at the cells to make sure if it is above or below the plane of focus. This is with a wide-field scope, of course. We don't have such problems with a confocal microscope. And typical satellite is wide-field, I believe.

BTW, I'm not saying the fifth blade is actually something placed on the ground, just a possibility... sometimes, the most obvious answer is the right answer...

vesicles said:

Objects placed on the ground also have shadows. With the satellite that high up, there is no way we can judge the vertical position of the blades by looking at the shadow.

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The position of the shadow is relatively far away from the blades, so we can assume that there must be some height between them.

duncanidaho said:

The position of the shadow is relatively far away from the blades, so we can assume that there must be some height between them.

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or the sun is low to the horizon. The highest place for the blades can only be the height of the chopper. That distance is negligible compared to the distance between the chopper and the satellite.

SamuraiBlue said:

I've thought of that but with the clearer picture you can see that the blade is not the same length either.

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the shadow also has a curve to it.

its the same height as the other rotor blades the shadow is roughly identical to the others except for its strange curve.

vesicles said:

or the sun is low to the horizon. The highest place for the blades can only be the height of the chopper. That distance is negligible compared to the distance between the chopper and the satellite.

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But if you take the airplanes especially their tailplane as reference?

a few more popped up
http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/air-force/z-20-a-7-6294.html#post252119

how about this what if this is just a miss identification of the Mil Mi171
it has the hull blisters on the sides the tail bar is in the right place the late models have the extended nose and its a five blade main rotor. the length is right to.
the photo is at a slight angle which might create part of the weird look.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

the shadow also has a curve to it.

its the same height as the other rotor blades the shadow is roughly identical to the others except for its strange curve.

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Maybe the blades are tilted downwards, so the shadows look like they are curved?

possible and since blades tend to have a bit of flex to them.
blade is almost totally horizontal to the rest of the chopper it's got a little more flop to it.