China's Z-20 helicopter surpasses Black Hawk in technologies, chief designer says

[Oldman1]

China's Z-20 helicopter surpasses Black Hawk in technologies, chief designer says
By Liu Xuanzun
Published: Oct 30, 2022 06:02 PM

Pilots assigned to an army aviation brigade under the PLA 76th Group Army maintain their helicopters in nearly motionless flight over a reference point at an ultra-low altitude before lifting off for a flight training exercise on January 5, 2022.Photo:China Military

China's domestically developed Z-20 utility helicopter has surpassed the US' Black Hawk, as it has adopted many advanced technologies the Black Hawk does not have, said the chief designer of the Chinese chopper on state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV).

Deng Jinghui made the remarks when he was asked on a CCTV program on Saturday if the Z-20 has copied or drawn inspiration from the Black Hawk, given the similarity in appearance between the two helicopters.

The Z-20 is a fourth-generation helicopter that has many technologies the Black Hawk does not have, including a fly-by-wire flight control system, which is a typical characteristic to make a helicopter ranking among the fourth generation, Deng said.

China had no reference when it developed the fly-by-wire flight control system on its own - even now the Black Hawk with fly-by-wire upgrades has not entered service, the chief designer said.

The Black Hawk is not equipped with active control systems of noise and vibration like the Z-20 does either, he said.

"It is not [the Z-20] that has copied the Black Hawk, it is the Z-20 that has surpassed the Black Hawk," Deng said.

Chen Guang, vice general manager of AVICOPTER, the helicopter branch of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), told the Global Times in a previous interview that the Z-20, including its powerful engine that can support high-altitude operations, is entirely developed and built by China.

Many technological innovations were applied to the Z-20, and the active vibration control, fly-by-wire, low-noise rotor design and high-performance rotor aerodynamic design are considered advanced in the world, the Global Times learned from the helicopter's makers.

As a type of utility helicopter, the Z-20 is expected to spawn many variants and enter service in different military arms and branches in large numbers just like the Black Hawk, a Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday.

According to official media reports, after the Z-20 made its debut at the National Day military parade on October 1, 2019 in Beijing, helicopters of this type have already entered service with the PLA Army, Navy, Air Force and the Chinese People's Armed Police Force.

China's Z-20 helicopter surpasses Black Hawk in technologies, chief designer says - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

"China had no reference when it developed the fly-by-wire flight control system on its own - even now the Black Hawk with fly-by-wire upgrades has not entered service, the chief designer said."

Fly-by-wire technology now used in Army utility helicopters

Fly-by-wire technology, which has been in use in other Defense Department aircraft for years, has found new life with utility helicopters.

www.army.mil

Fly-by-wire technology now used in Army utility helicopters​

By Randy Siniard, RDECOMAugust 25, 2011

Say what again? Maybe China hasn't really paid attention to Blackhawk programs and upgrades.

I won't be surprised, since Z-20 is a much newer product than the Black hawk, much more recent technological breakthroughs are available and can be introduced to Z-20

Newer doesn't mean anything in this case. Black Hawk has been constantly upgraded.

Was writing a bunch of response, but deleted them because as you said, we are going off of a tangent here. I will just say this instead. I know a lot of people in your country think we don't have a good working relationship or sometime discriminate against Muslim, because well, that's how our media portray and they tend to paint Muslim that way. There exists mutual respect between American and Pakistani in most domain and especially so when you are involved or work together one time or another, most Pakistani I know was amaze that I hold that liberal view on Pakistan, which is seen as an outliner if we use Western Media as a yard stick, to that I told them your first problem is using the western media view as a yardstick. I will just leave it at that.

Back on topic

It takes more than resource, time and know how to turn this

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Into this...


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The most important thing is user input, if we just use the Blackhawk as they were back in 1970, we will not have PAVEHAWK, or another Blackhawk derivative like Romeo Hawk or Jayhawk. This has hundreds if not thousands of hours of user input to finetune this tech and countless amount of sacrifice by the 160SOAR, 55th Special Rescue Squadron and the PJs, those input is what make this Pavehawk tick today, even small things like the "Rat cage" on the pilot seat come from Wolcott death because his leg got jammed in the control console and cannot remove his body unless we took down the entire Blackhawk around him. That's the kind of input that make this bird great today. It takes a person who ride on it, got shot to shit and then live to tell the tale or sometime not in some case to improve. This cannot be done by research or any sort of resource.

Or even this since the 1980s.

 

[Beast]

"China had no reference when it developed the fly-by-wire flight control system on its own - even now the Black Hawk with fly-by-wire upgrades has not entered service, the chief designer said."

Fly-by-wire technology now used in Army utility helicopters

Fly-by-wire technology, which has been in use in other Defense Department aircraft for years, has found new life with utility helicopters.

www.army.mil

Fly-by-wire technology now used in Army utility helicopters​

By Randy Siniard, RDECOMAugust 25, 2011

Say what again? Maybe China hasn't really paid attention to Blackhawk programs and upgrades.


Newer doesn't mean anything in this case. Black Hawk has been constantly upgraded.


Or even this since the 1980s.

LOL... The digital fly by wire in US blackhawk is in testing phase and has never really enter service while China puts into practice used. What the Chinese designer says is correct.

 

[Oldman1]

LOL... The digital fly by wire in US blackhawk is in testing phase and has never really enter service while China puts into practice used. What the Chinese designer says is correct.

Are you talking about this? Newest and advanced fly by wire tech?

Collins Aerospace and Sikorsky develop new fly-by-wire technology

Collins Aerospace Systems, with Sikorsky, has developed a new technologically advanced fly-by-wire retrofit solution that enables autonomous flight for rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft.

verticalmag.com

Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp., with Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, has developed a new technologically advanced fly-by-wire retrofit solution that enables autonomous flight for rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft. The technology was demonstrated as part of Sikorsky’s optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) system.

 

[Beast]

Are you talking about this? Newest and advanced fly by wire tech?

Collins Aerospace and Sikorsky develop new fly-by-wire technology

Collins Aerospace Systems, with Sikorsky, has developed a new technologically advanced fly-by-wire retrofit solution that enables autonomous flight for rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft.

verticalmag.com

Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp., with Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, has developed a new technologically advanced fly-by-wire retrofit solution that enables autonomous flight for rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft. The technology was demonstrated as part of Sikorsky’s optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) system.

Do u know what is prototype vs in service? Anybody can put in an demonstrated but its still far from an acceptable product.

The US put in a briliant EFV demonstration and we all know what happened as tech is not mature. Price tag too high...

and guess what? Its the Chinese who managed to put it into mass service with proven technology.

Its BS of u trying to tell me Blawkhawk has a testing digital fbw which we know its far from real world.

 

[Metal 0-1]

They got no dirt on the most Based helicopter ever

 

[Oldman1]

Do u know what is prototype vs in service? Anybody can put in an demonstrated but its still far from an acceptable product.

The US put in a briliant EFV demonstration and we all know what happened as tech is not mature. Price tag too high...

and guess what? Its the Chinese who managed to put it into mass service with proven technology.

Its BS of u trying to tell me Blawkhawk has a testing digital fbw which we know its far from real world.

This doesn't apply for the Blackhawks. And even if was a prototype, sometimes the technology learned can be applied like lets say Comanche program for stealth Blackhawks.

A UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter Just Flew Without Anyone Onboard For The First Time

The technology used in the flight could take over for aviators in the event of emergencies, help reduce their general workload, and much more.

www.thedrive.com

A modified pilot-optional UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has flown for the first time ever without a single human crew member onboard. The test flight utilized a suite of systems that are designed primarily to help improve the helicopter pilots' performance and offer additional margins of safety, but that could also provide a stepping stone to even greater autonomous capabilities down the road.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in cooperation with Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky, conducted the test flight involving the specially configured UH-60A testbed, which lasted roughly 30 minutes, at the Army's Fort Campbell in Kentucky on February 5. Another unmanned flight involving the same helicopter, which Sikorsky owns and has the U.S. civil registration code N600PV, took place on February 7. There are no additional details available so far about this second test. DARPA says it now plans to conduct the first flight of a fly-by-wire UH-60M equipped with this same system at Fort Eustis, Virginia sometime within the next month.