New High-Flyers

Prasun K. Sengupta

The 5th China Helicopter Exposition from October 10-13, which was jointly held by the Tianjin Municipal Government, the Aviation Industry Corporation of China Ltd (AVIC) and the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) ground forces, not only lifted the curtains on the Z-20 family of medium-lift helicopters, but also provided deep insights into the on-going development of two different types of heavy-lift helicopters. In all, the expo attracted 415 exhibitors from 18 countries, and had 53 civilian and military helicopters on display.

China’s Z-20F shipborne helicopter

Huang Chuanyue, AVIC’s deputy chief engineer for heavy-lift helicopters, revealed that the new-generation variants of the Z-8 (the Z-8G and Z-8L) have a total take-off weight of 13 tonnes, while the joint Sino-Russian project to develop and build a 40-tonne new-generation heavy-lift helicopter (AHL), which w