Black Shark
Junior Member
The AH-1Z weights like i mentioned nothing like 10t but 8391kg.
The MTOW is mentioned in Pocket Guide from Bell Helicopters for the AH-1Z.
Page 14, it mentions 18.500 lbs MTOW which is 8391kg. They never use long tons in aviation, at least i've never seen them using that, only lbs, kg and metric tons.
[URL='https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/members/bltizo.4915/']Bltizo[/URL] said:
Ok lets throw some numbers.
Z-10 currently with WZ-9 engines of ( continue power of 1341 shp) (if i am not mistaken).
With the current numbers we have that would mean 5540kg empty, 8000kg mtow (verification needed).
I don't have numbers of WZ-9 Take off power and max OEI power.
1341 shp / 8000kg = 167,63 shp/t MTOW with continuoues power. That is the 2nd lowest performance. The lowest performance for equal figures has AH-64E with 160,82 shp/t under MTOW/continuoues power) The flight performance under such low numbers are very low with climb ratios not higher than 4 m/s at most.
The measurements of the Z-10 would place it empty weighted above 5t. We can take direct assumptions on its weight by its requirements. It was reported to have been designed with armored cockpit glass, meaning high priority on crew protection. The helicopter fuselage of AH-1Z at widest point is roughly 1,07m wide. The Z-10 mid cockpit section width is roughly 1,92m. This direct let us conclude that there was used more material on the fuselage. The sizes between AH-1Z and Z-10 are also concluding that it won't weight much less in empty weight than the AH-1Z. AH-1Z length (fuselage 13.87m) Z-10 is (fuselage 14.5m and 13.57m on Project 941 concept), height of AH-1Z is (4,11m) and Z-10 height is (4,05m on Project 941 blueprints) So the measurement difference from length height are very similiar, while the fuselage width of AH-1Z stays almost the same over entire cockpit to tailboom section, while Z-10 is almost diamond shaped and uses more material to cover the fuselage.
So i think on the limited information we got, it is rightful to assume that the weight of Z-10 is not lower than that of AH-1Z.
