Mysterious Chinese Helicopter Emerges on Internet

2013-09-03 — An interesting image has emerged from the prolific Chinese Internet. It depicts a mysterious helicopter being moved on a truck in China. Even if the aircraft is hidden below a protective covering, its shape can be guessed.

The chopper seems to have something in common with the U.S. UH-60 Black Hawk, hence it may be a Z-20, a Chinese model believed to be based on the S-70C, a medium transport/utility helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky already in service with the People’s Liberation Army. 

 

Mysterious Chinese Helicopter

 However, there is another intriguing and (less likely) possibility: China has reverse-engineered the Stealth Black Hawk helicopter used by the Navy SEALs in the Osama Bin Laden raid.

Obviously this is a far fetched theory, since only a few chunks survived the crash landing at Abbottabad. Still, on Aug. 14, 2011, several media outlets all around the world, published the news that China was given access by Pakistani intelligence to the remains of the Stealth Black Hawk used during Operation Neptune’s Spear.

What if they copied the general design of the tail rotor and, just like this author did with Ugo Crisponi, designed a chopper whose shape is similar to the one of the U.S. black MH-X or the Israeli Stealth Yanshuf?

China Conducts First Test Flight OF Z-20 Helicopter

China Conducts First Successful Test Flight OF Z-20 Helicopter. Z-20 is a new general purpose transport helicopter in 10+ ton  class developed for the People Liberation Army. It was speculated to be based on American S-70C currently still in service with PLA but also shares some common features with Z-10.