Z-10 thread

[Lion]

Hold your lion there, my dear lion. I think you need a bit of historical prospective on Sino-Russian relationship. could you please follow me to the year 1949. When chairman Mao proudly proclaim the creation of People's Republic, where was PLANF and PLAAF in the first Tianman Square parade? They were nowhere, right? because they didn't exist. Both the airforce and the navy of PLA were established under extensive help from the Soviet. When I say "extensive help" I mean ships, planes, port, maintance, officers, training, facility, doctrine, you name it, the only thing China can provide at that time are space, and able-bodied freshman.

If you fast-forwad a bit to the time when Stalin died and Khrushchev, eager to establish a firm alliance with Mao, decided to "industralize" China, the Soviet aid raise to a whole new level. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet experts from all fields came to China, brought equipment with them, blueprint with them, science, designs, technologies, expertise, everything, all free of charge. They replicate factories and plants in China exactly how they were built in Soviet; It is through THEIR hard work, China had established a firm industrial base.

On came the Sino-Soviet split, that's a ideological and political mess with very little real conflict of interests. When the time came for these experts to leave, the order was for them to burn all the blueprint, all the documents and destroy all the moulds. But these experts, having worked in China for so long and were friends of their chinese collegues, couldn't bear to destroy what they have created. So many of them secretly copied the documents and left them with Chinese. These are gifts, inheritance if you will, that you wouldn't find anywhere on earth. Imagine Boeing transfer to you the plant and blueprints for building 747, without charging your the money for the PAPER. Money couldn't even measure the importance of these to the fledging Chinese heavy industry.

I want to revisit this history not because I want to attribute everything China have achieved to Soviet or Russia. For any country or person, if you don't work yourself, no help is enough help. However, to say Russian engineers somehow harbors an inherent "racist" or "bitterness" toward China could not be further from the truth. The collabration and, forgive me for saying, friendship, between Russian and Chinese military scientist and engineers goes back a long time. No matter exactly who is involved in which project, that China inhereted a great deal from Soviet military techonologies is an undeniable fact. So all these bickering about if Russians are "involved" in Z-10 and Y-20 are kind of pointless to me. If there was no such nation as Russian ever existed, China's "5-year plan" right now would probably be about how much rice to plant for the next five years. So, if Russians want some "honorary mention" after a Chinese new weapon, they are more than have earned it anyway. There really is no need for this stringent accounting of "who did what".

Credit shall given to the rightful place. If you don't do it , don't claim it. Some might see it as a small thing. But I think is a matter of principle.

China is grateful for Russian contribution in national building of modern China. But at the same time, Russian shall not forget when the country is in dirt state. The only country come out with hard cash to salvage their armed forces during the early 90s to late 90's is China and not even India.

The western power is only interested in giving cash on matter of dismantling nuclear arm of Russian and weakling Russian armed forces.

China is the very reason Russian Armed forces survived during that period. Then came the Russian attitude of you can't make anything by yourself attitude that make Russian start overcharging or amend any sign contract at its will on its loyal customer base on its client will always depend on them for arm supply. Or you try to deny all this?

Relationship and partnership are based on 2 way traffic. If other can't have a mutual same level partnership. You do not start pointing finger and claim all the goodies you have done for one in the past?

 

[coolieno99]

Some might see it as a small thing. ...

It is a small thing. When China became a legitimate sovereign state in 1949, Russia was the first country to recognized it. The U.S. did not recognized China until 23 years later , 1972.

 

[Lion]

It is a small thing. When China became a legitimate sovereign state in 1949, Russia was the first country to recognized it. The U.S. did not recognized China until 23 years later , 1972.

Russia is also the country tempting to nuke China during the 1969 confrontation.. I think you must be not aware of that?
I think everybody has different view of things. You think is small, I think is not.

 

[coolieno99]

Russia is also the country tempting to nuke China during the 1969 confrontation.. I think you must be not aware of that?
I think everybody has different view of things. You think is small, I think is not.

During the Korean War, Gen. Douglas McArthur( U.S. ) had a plan to drop 25 nukes onto China's industrial zone in north east China.

 

[jobjed]

It is a small thing. When China became a legitimate sovereign state in 1949, Russia was the first country to recognized it. The U.S. did not recognized China until 23 years later , 1972.

China has been a legitimate sovereign state since it was united in the Qin dynasty. The People's Republic of China became caretaker nation state of the mainland in 1949 and the Republic of China became caretaker of the island of Taiwan since 1945. There is no such thing as a legitimate sovereign nation state of China due to the fact that the two sides of the Taiwan strait are still divided.

 

[A.Man]

It is a small thing. When China became a legitimate sovereign state in 1949, Russia was the first country to recognized it. The U.S. did not recognized China until 23 years later , 1972.

The United States did not recognize China until 1979, just before the Sino-Vietnamese border war.

 

[kyanges]

So all these bickering about if Russians are "involved" in Z-10 and Y-20 are kind of pointless to me. If there was no such nation as Russian ever existed, China's "5-year plan" right now would probably be about how much rice to plant for the next five years. So, if Russians want some "honorary mention" after a Chinese new weapon, they are more than have earned it anyway. There really is no need for this stringent accounting of "who did what".

Nah, there's every bit a need to know who did what. Knowing that information helps establish what else needs to be worked on for the future.

 

[siegecrossbow]

This thread is about WZ-10 and not Sino-Russian Relations. GET BACK ON TOPIC!!!

 

[plawolf]

I don't know what you mean by design for me design mean detail design structural aero dynamics, component design(rotor, avionics, weapon,radar,engine) the whole work. Sketches is not design it is just illustration

Well, I think that you are actually in the majority with that impression, and that is precisely the point.

When this story first broke, the first questions that popped up in my head were, 'why would Kamov announce this?', and 'why now?'

The announcement by Kamov came completely out of the blue, it's not like it's been 10 or 20 years when the confidentiality agreement might have expired, and there were no questions that lead to this disclosure. This was a calculated and well planned move by Kamov.

When you examine the exact language used, you cannot really fault what has been said in that it was all perfectly reasonable. However, it is interesting that very little detail was given about just how much work Kamov actually did, certainly, the part leaked in 2007 about the contract being done from start to finish between 1995 and 1996 was omitted, and I think that was deliberate. In addition, I think Kamov was likely playing a little fast a loose with it's translation, as I expect the kind of work they had done to be more accurately translated as 'conceptual design'. But if they came out and said 'conceptual design', everyone would have a better idea of what they did and would not give them a fraction of the credit they are getting now.

When people hear 'preliminary design' the only thing they really register is 'design', and in their minds, they make the same assumptions as you have laid out above.

Kamov looks to have been very clever here, if they had just came out and claimed a big part of the credit for the WZ10, the Chinese would likely just come right out and say that they are BSing, and odds are few people would end up believe Kamov because of how different the WZ10 is from anything else they have made. However, by saying what they said, while they stuck to the technical truth, they created the impression that they did a great deal more work than they possibly could have, and it would be extremely hard for the Chinese to do anything to address that because its all in people's heads.

I know that the article has been posted before I just try to highlight the word "preliminary" meaning a concept design or in lay man term Paper design

Well that is what I have been trying to highlight right from the start.

When you look at the details, it becomes very apparent that Kamov could never have done any sort of in-depth detailed design work on the WZ10.

As I have already pointed out, if they had done anything of the sort, the WZ10 would have flown a hell of a lot earlier, and would have looked a hell of a lot more like other Kamov products.

The main reason the WZ10's shape is such a massive departure from anything else Kamov designs was because how the design would be made was not even taken into consideration during such a early and conceptual phase.

I seriously doubt there was even a specific project to make the WZ10 at the time, and the design proposals was more of an idealized example of what the 'perfect' attack helicopter would look like in the weight and performance categories specified without any consideration about how one would go about building it.

This brings us neatly onto the second fact which rules out any detailed design work by Kamov, the date of their involvement. Many, if not most of the components and fabrication methods used in the construction of the WZ10 were not even invented or in production in 1995, so how the hell would Kamov have designed an attack helicopter using parts and techniques which did not even exist at the time? The PT6C-67C engines the WZ10 prototypes used were not even certified until 2003 for example.

Lastly, you just have to look at the timeframe of Kamov's involvement. The entire contract, from signing to completion was done in a year maximum, possible a lot less. There is simply no way any company can make such a complex design in such a short period of time.

No I don't think it work that way in real world I don't know of anyone who know the weight distribution of helicopter, plane or ship in advance. Because design doesn't stay static, it always change and normally goes through thousand of changes before it come to final design.They have target but rarely reached. So what you did at the beginning of design was never be the same as final product or in other word irrelevant !
That is exactly the problem with F35 weight gain

As I said before, what China asked for was very likely not for a detailed functional design. I think what they asked for was more of an academic question like, 'if you did not have to worry at all about practical limitations, what would be the ideal shape and weight distribution for an attack helicopter in the 6t weight range which meets these performance specs'.

That was what Kamov did, and the primary reason the WZ10 ended up looking so much like those initial Kamov drawings was because the Chinese aimed to achieve that idealized version of a 6t attack helicopter and looks like they have made a pretty good stab at it.

Why else do you think Kamov would voluntarily want to be associated with the WZ10? They are coming out of the woodworks now because the WZ10 looks like a winner and they want to steal/share/whatever-you-care-to-call-it as much of credit as they can get away with. The LCA has had plenty of foreign help and still does, yet do you see anyone going out of their way to be associated with that? So in a way, I think we should take this as a complement.

Yes Wu Ximing was on the video interview at the last Zhuhai air show denying the involvement of foreigner in design of WZ 10 and here again what we mean by design is open to interpretation

Do you have a link? I don't think I seen that video.

 

[hardware]

the revelation by kamov might contain some truth,despiter some doubt ,remember during 90's Chinese airframe design are very weak.china aerospace do not possess highly sophisticate testing facilites ,if you look at back issue of ConMilit Magazine ,in mid-90's a lot of Chinese make radar and missile fire control system still rely on analog system, alot of dial ,transistor and even vaccum tube, and small number of sc lsi IC technology. you just look at F-8-2 cokcpit, it was only in early 2000 's that PLA manage make the transisition from analog to digital.