cn_habs
Junior Member
It's good to see that with some practice, the soldiers were able to land on their feet while sliding down the rope.
Z-20 (all variants) thread
- Thread starter delft
- Start date
It's good to see that with some practice, the soldiers were able to land on their feet while sliding down the rope.
I think this is one of the earlier Z-20 prototypes. Note the red object on the rotor hub. I don't know what purpose it serves.
Indeed similar to this one even if here the red thing on top is missing.
A new image of the Z-20 naval transport and assault variant - sometimes called Z-20J (or even Z-20S) - was posted. This type is under development in parallel to the ASW variant Z-20F and two prototypes are known (serial numbers 6211 & 6212).
(Image via @zuola2006 from Weibo)
And similar to the Z-20J naval transport and assault variant posted a few minutes ago, here are also 4 new images showing the Z-20F ASW variant.
(Images via @铁幕君SSS from Weibo)
(Image via @zuola2006 from Weibo)
And similar to the Z-20J naval transport and assault variant posted a few minutes ago, here are also 4 new images showing the Z-20F ASW variant.
(Images via @铁幕君SSS from Weibo)
They changed the rear landing gear location to fit smaller landing pad it seems ? Could it help to turn them on deck ?
Yup - picture a fully loaded Type 075, the tail wheel located closer to the cabin gives a tighter turning radius on the ground, and allows ground crew/tugs to maneuver Z-20s more easily on a packed flight deck or hangar.
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Those modifications are present between UH-60 to the navalized SH-60 originally.
Other purposes of the rear landing gear location is that on the normal land based UH-60 and Z-20 the landing gear is on the tail, and if you want to fold the tail to reduce the length of the aircraft, you need to move the rear landing gear more forwards otherwise the rear landing gear will move with the folded tail (check the locations on UH-60 and Z-20 vs SH-60/MH-60 and Z-20F/J).
Also, having a more forward rear landing gear I think means the footprint of your landing pad can be smaller, because the points of the aircraft that need to touch the deck when it lands (i.e.: the landing gear) is shorter. It means your tail can overhang the aft part of the helipad if necessary when landing, but it wouldn't be possible if the rear landing gear was in the location of the land based UH-60 or Z-20.
What are some of the disadvantages of having forward landing gear? Obviously there must be some, else all helicopters would have this configuration. I imagine it makes landings more difficult since a rear landing gear is more forgiving of sloppy helicopter orientation.
I can only speculate, but I think having more rear landing gear makes crash landings or uncontrolled landings slightly less damaging, because in a helicopter you would seek to crash land "nose up" and "tail down".
In that situation, the first point of contact of the helicopter with the surface/ground will be the tail, so if your rear landing gear is more aft then you might suffer less damage than attempting an equivalently oriented landing with rear landing gear placed more forward like on SH/MH-60R or Z-20F/J.
But for navalized helicopters who spend more time over the ocean, chances are you won't be spending much time over land in the first place so it probably isn't more important.
Part of the reason of having rear landing gear placed more forward on navalized helicopters with the Blackhawk landing gear configuration is to make landings easier on naval ships.
A more rearward landing gear makes it easier to land on an unprepared surface (think along the lines of a grass field or sandy beach), since it comes into contact with the ground before the main wheels touchdown. Kinda hard to explain with words, so I'll illustrate with a video of a Black Hawk landing on a beach.... Try picturing that landing if the rear landing gear were closer to the body and not the tail.
Navalized version of the Z-20 and SH/MH-60 spend most of their time out at sea operating on ship decks anyway, so I suppose the priority is to make it easier maneuvering them on a packed flight deck or hangar.