* Pakistan's tri services have more than 300 helicopters in service.
* Pakistan Army Aviation has over 250 Utility Helicopters in service most of which would require a replacement within the next 25 year time period. It includes various models of Mi-17, Bell, Puma, Alouette III, Lama, AS550s etc
* Chinese firm Herbin is developing a new helicopter based on the UH-60 Blackhawks they bought in the 80s. This helicopter is much different than a Blackhawk with its distinctive 5 rotor blade, a larger cabin, different landing gear, tail etc.
This machine can lift 4 tonnes of cargo and has good high altitude flight features. The question is, would it be good for Pakistan to join the Z-20 program at this development stage and bring its production to Pakistan, in order to replace all Utility Helicopters in service with various modified models for Utility, Armed Escort, S&R, Sea ops, light attack (like the battlehawk) as well as the civilian applications for rescue and emergency?
I've said it times and times before, if any JV is available with the Chinese, Pakistan should jump on it. The analogy I'll give is building a house. If Pakistan can learn to build houses by itself (houses being helicopters, jets, SAMS, AEW, etc), the major part is done. Now everyone knows that this home may not have a nice layout such as the one provided by the West (in terms of avionics, radars, etc), but you can buy those from whoever else later or do home grown research.
The key is, you learned to build houses internally and for a fraction of the cost you currently pay to Western markets. Once there is a working structure that would meet basic needs, you can advance that structure and build nicer homes in the future internally, and without spending billions of dollars outside.
Indians, for the longest time, due to being a very poor country, drove Maruti's, etc. and had a total ban on importing cars, to sponsor made in India products. Now look where they are.......they now own Land Rover and Jaguars, etc, and have serious internal competition.
A JV on helicopters will do two things, it'll set up an aviation industry for both, the military and the civilian markets. Soon, in the next decade, when the economy and the GDP grows about 20-30% more (4-5% over 6-7 years), you'll start to see a LOT more new millionaires in the system, many new thriving businesses, a lot more public welfare projects, etc.
The Hospital footprint's, as one example, is expanding in Pakistan so at some point, Air Lift capability will be added, more Police Choppers, Customs, Rangers, Para Military, and all will be needed. The Rich would want to buy these too.
So all in all, if today, say your military has over 300 utility helicopters, imagine standardizing with one ingeniously built platform for utility choppers, which you can build, maintain and advance internally. Forever, leaving the utility helicopters' foreign market as a buyer and saving many billions per year. With having thousands of new hi tech jobs internally, and eventually, end up creating internal companies which can produce more models and compete with each other.
If you had a strong platform like this, you could arm it as a light-medium platform yourself, letting go of the older platforms, standardize weapons and maintenance capabilities (and save money there also), and being able to sell these to foreign markets for a fraction of what someone would pay to the West.
To many countries, price matters, and you capitalize that market! Its a win win situation. Same should happen on the Metro-Train, High Speed Rail (eventually), Stealth Jet (if the money allows for it), Subs, SAMS, AEW and Radars. The Chinese may be behind the US in terms of capability, but IMO, on may items, they are on par or above Russia (or soon, going above Russia). So anything Pakistan gets as a TOT, will help her locally and will allow it to sell internationally and make $$$$. The Chinese won't mind giving you tot on certain things, you use it to your own country's advantage.
