Reuters reported that China’s advanced Z-20 helicopter appeared at the Zhuhai Airshow today (November 12). According to analysts who spoke with the news agency, the most significant element of the new version of the military rotorcraft is its potential to shore up China’s naval capability to protect itself from submarine attacks.
Mechanical devices that have the same function tend to look similar. You see that in fighters, space shuttles, cars, ball-point pens, and transport aircraft.
I doubt the Z-20 has any interchangeable parts with US copters.
Kind of reminds me of the time the Soviets made that copy of the Space Shuttle. There is no parts interchangeability, but the Buran orbiter has a great number of identical design features to its American counterparts that made both overly complicated and expensive and were only put on the American Space Shuttle to get Congress to fund it. Similar to the current SLS boondoggle. The Soviet’s reason for keeping these expensive and questionable design elements was basically “Those dastardly capitalistic Americans must have made these choices for some evil imperialistic reason, so we’ll do the same to counter therm!”
“Mechanical devices that have the same function tend to look similar.”
I don’t know one person who would say a Toyota Corolla looks similar to a Lamborghini Aventador. Very few “native” designed Russian (or Chinese) military aircraft had similar near carbon copy “looks” on the outside to our aircraft. Military transports and civilian airliners which are basically tubes with wings are a different matter however. This is a clear carbon copy design of the UH-60 which is sold on used markets so it would not be hard to obtain and reverse engineer the design of.
China has made it clear that it their government’s policy to steal national security, military, industrial, and other forms of intellectual property from the US. They actively attack firewalls across the nation thousands of time a day. Nothing new here when you are involved in a cold war.
If you mean a single-main-rotor helicopter with a single tail-rotor, sure. But this Z-20 has far more similarities with the H-60/Blackhawk than the basic design.
It has an identical main-landing-gear design (there are many ways to engineer a landing gear) with an identical-looking tail wheel and identical-looking horizontal stabilator. The UH-1 and Robinson R44 helicopters (both single-main-rotor-with-single-tail-rotor designs) have very different horizontal stabilators. The positioning of the engine nacelles are also nearly-identical, as is the overall shape. There are many ways the fuselage and engine nacelles could be shaped and positioned (Apache, Bell 407, AW109), yet they chose a design that very much simulates a Blackhawk.
The PLAAF purchased Sikorsky S-70s (civilian Blackhawks) from the US in 1984. After Tiananmen Square the US refused to sell them more, so they told local industry “Make something like that, but improve it.”
The Z-20 is based on a 1980s vintage S-70, but has many differences and improvements - five-bladed main rotor, fly-by-wire, more powerful engines, etc. It is faster, has more range, and carries more payload than the S-70s they operate. I doubt there is any parts commonality, but they started with the S-70 as a known working design so the resemblance is not a coincidence.
Which just goes to show that it’s never a wise idea to get involved with selling things to China, because they will ultimately copy it and make their own cheaper version. They have proven this time and again, and from I understand, that’s why they require anyone entering their market to build them locally.