High speed helicopters including compound helicopters or tilt rotors will be a very important part of any major military's army and naval aviation fleet, providing advantages of high speed, long range, higher survivablity similar to a fixed wing aircraft and the flexibility of vertical lift and ship borne operations of a conventional helicopter. Some if the obvious advantages would be the higher speed and agility of next gen attack helicopters which can potentially replace fixed wing aircrafts like the su-25 and a-10 in the traditional CAS role, increased range and payload of transport helicopters that can augment capabilities in fixed wing medium tactical transport role like y-9 and c-130, and increased endurance and range of shipborne ASW helicopters.
With the USArmy's FVL program moving along fairly rapidly into the finalization stages for the Blackhawk replacement and future recon helicopter, Chinese army and naval aviation runs the risk of being left behind again as the z-20 Blackhawk equivalent is only recently introduced and the Z-10 is small and underpowered. Now that the 1600 - 2000kw class turbo shafts are in production and 5000kw class turbo shaft in development, it will be interesting to explore and share some of the recent developments in how these new engines can be applied to China's future high speed helicopter program.
Some of the known programs:
Blue Whale tilt-rotor which is similar to the Boeing v-44 in the c-130 20t capacity class
Coaxial and transverse compound helicopter concepts
With the USArmy's FVL program moving along fairly rapidly into the finalization stages for the Blackhawk replacement and future recon helicopter, Chinese army and naval aviation runs the risk of being left behind again as the z-20 Blackhawk equivalent is only recently introduced and the Z-10 is small and underpowered. Now that the 1600 - 2000kw class turbo shafts are in production and 5000kw class turbo shaft in development, it will be interesting to explore and share some of the recent developments in how these new engines can be applied to China's future high speed helicopter program.
Some of the known programs:
Blue Whale tilt-rotor which is similar to the Boeing v-44 in the c-130 20t capacity class
Coaxial and transverse compound helicopter concepts