Z-8 and Z-18 transport helicopter - family & versions

Deino said:

To admit I'm a bit surprised that no specific tread on this quite important helicopter exist shere ... You can find a few news in the Naval helicopter tread, in the heavy transport "aircraft" tread and in the Z-20 tread ... so here a soecial one for the CHinese "Frelon" !


Especially since there something new:

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Deino

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interesting to see if they still have need to purchase more Mi-171 at this point. There were probably 5 regiements of Z-8A/B in service with PLA LH. Although I'm not sure how many helicopters are in those in total. Also, I would love to see the production rate of Z-18 series now. Back in 2007, they reached the production rate of 15 that year. Since then, it has been going up, but I have not seen any numbers.

Nice to see that 1970s nose cone gone

Also does anyone know what happened to the AC313 project 5 years ago there was lots of bangs and whistles but the project seems to have vanished into obscurity

AC313 was actually a really very nice helicopter very modern platform

same one?

asif iqbal said:

Nice to see that 1970s nose cone gone

Also does anyone know what happened to the AC313 project 5 years ago there was lots of bangs and whistles but the project seems to have vanished into obscurity

AC313 was actually a really very nice helicopter very modern platform

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I think AC313 has entered production, and probably for some customers, but we just don't know of them.

Much of AC313s genes can be seen in the Z-18 variants, and especially this Z-18A basic transporter. I wouldn't be surprised if the AC313 production line has been retooled for, or is being retooled for producing Z-18s
The entire plane appears similar externally to the AC313 apart from the nose, which looks more in line with modern helicopters like the Blackhawk family or Merlin.

Deino said:

To admit I'm a bit surprised that no specific tread on this quite important helicopter exist shere ... You can find a few news in the Naval helicopter tread, in the heavy transport "aircraft" tread and in the Z-20 tread ... so here a soecial one for the CHinese "Frelon" !


Especially since there something new:

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Deino

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What was unreliable with the old Z-8? And how do we know that those problems have been fixed?

PanAsian said:

What was unreliable with the old Z-8? And how do we know that those problems have been fixed?

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I think it is better phrased that Z-18 is now more reliable than Z-8. Obviously there is no absolute standard of reliability, similarly it is also logical that newer and more refined products should be more reliable than older models.

So to answer your question, there was probably nothing absolutely "unreliable" about the old legacy Z-8 per se (at least not to a degree that the PLA was unwilling to use them), but rather that the newer Z-18 is much more reliable and/or better performing overall. In other words, Z-18 is a better, newer version of the old Z-8A

asif iqbal said:

Nice to see that 1970s nose cone gone

Also does anyone know what happened to the AC313 project 5 years ago there was lots of bangs and whistles but the project seems to have vanished into obscurity

AC313 was actually a really very nice helicopter very modern platform

Click to expand...

Here is a fire-fighting AC313 used by the China Armed Police Force Forest Unit:



Before this they used Z-8 for fire-fighting duties:

Deino said:

Especially since there something new:

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Deino

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It has a bit of the S-92-style in it !?

The days of China buying Mi-171 are over. I guess this is what they call import substitution.

Franklin said:

The days of China buying Mi-171 are over. I guess this is what they call import substitution.

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I wouldn't be so sure about that.

The days when China needs to buy Mi171s are indeed over, but with the Russian economy tanking because of western market intervention on oil prices and sanctions, Beijing may well decide to throw Putin a lifeline and sign a few big contracts to give the Russian economy a boost.