TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Automatic pilot and Autonomous are both already available and demonstrated on Blackhawk.
Z-20 (all variants) thread
- Thread starter delft
- Start date
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
See, I don’t think that’s really needed.
As I said I view the Article as Clickbait. This is as a flying pickup truck is a flying pickup truck. The key limitations of this class of vertical lift will remain no matter how you tinker with the design. These limitations of design, Materials, doctrine, role as well as the limitations of the Traditional Helicopter configuration come into play.
Generally it’s hard to imagine that Z20 wouldn’t preform along the same lines as S70, just as Ka60 or Aw149 would. It might tweak the numbers here or there but it’s limitations are fairly fixed unless your decide to scrap the Traditional R4 plan and adopt an alternative like a compound helicopter, Tandom rotor, Coaxial rotor or a Even a tiltrotor.
For the now yes on the features list Z20 has some nice updates but that should be expected. I mean it’s ten years old vs a forty year old platform. Changes in science and technology. That features list may make it more “advanced” yet it’s still a helicopter. Farther even the article admits that Blackhawk Mike and Victor models are going fly by wire. That’s how the unmanned Blackhawk flights are flown. The Us H60 fleet isn’t stagnant it’s in the middle of a modernization and recapitalization cycle which in a few years will be including new more powerful engines which might mean post 2026 Z20 is more or less tied in specs numbers until the Chinese try and cook up an improvement. Yet even then the limitations of the design mean that it can’t fly significantly faster or higher or longer range than it already can unless they make such a significant changes. Like in example a Z20 Speedhawk build bolting wings on the side and a pusher in place of the tailrotor for more speed.
As I said I view the Article as Clickbait. This is as a flying pickup truck is a flying pickup truck. The key limitations of this class of vertical lift will remain no matter how you tinker with the design. These limitations of design, Materials, doctrine, role as well as the limitations of the Traditional Helicopter configuration come into play.
Generally it’s hard to imagine that Z20 wouldn’t preform along the same lines as S70, just as Ka60 or Aw149 would. It might tweak the numbers here or there but it’s limitations are fairly fixed unless your decide to scrap the Traditional R4 plan and adopt an alternative like a compound helicopter, Tandom rotor, Coaxial rotor or a Even a tiltrotor.
For the now yes on the features list Z20 has some nice updates but that should be expected. I mean it’s ten years old vs a forty year old platform. Changes in science and technology. That features list may make it more “advanced” yet it’s still a helicopter. Farther even the article admits that Blackhawk Mike and Victor models are going fly by wire. That’s how the unmanned Blackhawk flights are flown. The Us H60 fleet isn’t stagnant it’s in the middle of a modernization and recapitalization cycle which in a few years will be including new more powerful engines which might mean post 2026 Z20 is more or less tied in specs numbers until the Chinese try and cook up an improvement. Yet even then the limitations of the design mean that it can’t fly significantly faster or higher or longer range than it already can unless they make such a significant changes. Like in example a Z20 Speedhawk build bolting wings on the side and a pusher in place of the tailrotor for more speed.
Fly by wire makes the helicopter a lot easier to pilot. Given that China is going to massively expand the amount of helicopters in service and they will need to train pilots to operate them the advantage having fly by wire provides is not something you can so easily discard just like that.
As for proposed replacements for conventional helicopters those have been worked on for decades and so far they have been a failure. The AH-56 Cheyenne for example was worked on in the late 1960s. Rigid rotor helicopters were worked on for nearly as long. China needs proper working helicopters today, not in some far distant future.
As for proposed replacements for conventional helicopters those have been worked on for decades and so far they have been a failure. The AH-56 Cheyenne for example was worked on in the late 1960s. Rigid rotor helicopters were worked on for nearly as long. China needs proper working helicopters today, not in some far distant future.
Given how vulnerable helicopters have been in Ukraine, is this really a good idea? Maybe invest the money in U(C)AVs, long range artillery and survivable armoured vehicles instead? Sure, helos will still have a role but they appear to be very vulnerable near the FEBA.
The Z-20 is not a combat helicopter. And in the initial stages of the war the Russians were in fact capable of doing pretty impressive feats with heliborne assaults like the one at Gostomel. I also remember the US intervention in Haiti several years back where US landed large amounts of troops with helicopters pretty much unopposed. The helicopters will help deploy troops in either Tibet or Xinjiang more easily.
Battlefield is definitely changing as you noted about Ukraine but manpads been a threat since Vietnam. The US was lucky that its war adversaries did not have them the past 20 years since her "cold war" competitors decided not to sell them out of desire for better economic relationships. But they will still need to ferry troops from A to Z and provide escort from A to Z. I imagine there will be better tactics, chaffes, and electronic/ir-laser jammers introduced.
Even more change will come when passenger UAVs are introduced (very shortly). In 2025 you can ferry troops in flying taxis.
The Soviets worked a lot on improving IR countermeasures and stealth for helicopters ever since Afghanistan. The first thing they did was add a huge amount of flares to helicopters. That vastly reduced the amount of helicopter losses to the point they were more of a nuisance than a problem. Later they started adding covers to the engines to reduce IR signature in the frontal aspect. And now you have Russian helicopters like the Mi-28 which were designed specifically with IR stealth in mind. I think we will also see more use of DIRCM or active laser counter measures.
I think Z-20 and Z-8L will be used in Taiwan scenario too. If Taiwan is going to lose electricity and oil (like our projected scenario would indicate), PLA should be able to pretty easily land troops over Taiwan at night time undetected for special operations.