China Unveils Homemade Helicopter

China technologically is becoming more selfsufficent.

Do not know what it took for China to develop this as in trails and errors, hopefully it paid its dues on development, otherwise or I should say either way we will be hearing more of this......good and bad.

I'll leave it to other CR4 contributors who are much more familiar with aircraft, but I would be stunned if this helicopter was truly "domestically developed". I suspect it's largely a knocked-off reverse-engineered version of some existing vehicle made elsewhere.

Although I guess it's all in how you define the word "developed".

Hmmm. After a little lunchtime surfing, it appears that it may just be a commercialized version of a Chinese military helicopter which they copied from the French SA-321 Super Frelon.

http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/helicopter/z8.asp

Your right, This is no newbe and yes they are defining "developed" in a very localized slang way.

Didn't know they were so desperate.

They are not desperate, they are smart and hard working. The Western World is getting desperate because they are scared of falling behind.

I love all the disparaging remarks about the Chinese that I read on CR4 written by people from countries that have given up their own development and manufacturing base to the East because they are desperate for cheap products and their populace too greedy or lazy to work the way they used to. Beware, the yellow peril has arrived.

Having said that, I would be wary of flying in the things - helicopters are just complicated bits of engineering looking for somewhere to crash.

Guest?

Whatever..... it was meant to be a pun and I still like my Pearls with Red, White & Blue.

I have friends from China and we fun with each other regularly without offence to each other. Grow up.

Jeez some people seem to forget that technologically speaking China has been ahead of of the rest of the world at various times in history.
Patronising is a big word boys and girls, hands up anyone who knows what patronising means?
Del

Del and Guest, you're right. China is a wondeful, beautiful, richly-historic country. Technologically, artistically and culturally it has at times been miles ahead.

And I really don't want to get into a rant here. Honest. But I'm sad to report that in our experience that from a technological aspect now isn't one of those times.

We work with Chinese companies on a regular basis, and frankly what we see out of their own design shops is often "sub-optimal", to put it kindly. During product development our functional and component specifications are frequently ignored, presumably in the expectation that we'll just accept glaring deficiencies. All indications are that they tend to cut-n-paste vaguely similar pre-existing designs into our applications and are extremely reluctant or incapapble of innovating any changes. Same goes for implementing solutions that we supply them. During product development the exchanges between us and our China partners become almost darkly humorous in the exasperation. And unsurprisingly we've found our own designs given to them promptly copied and in production by other Chinese companies.

Are there Chinese companies which strive for and achieve excellence? There must be! But regretably we never found them. Over the last few years we've had to do so much hand-holding, leg-work and stateside rework for our Chinese partners that we're currently phasing out doing business there. It's just not cost-effective.

And so when I see stories like this one with bold announcements of China developing their own new aircraft, forgive me if I take it with a 55-gallon drum of salt. Especially when from the post above it appears to be yet another example of copying an existing item.

China's "development" process is becoming more and more of a problem. basically it distills down to reverse engineering of products that some other country sold them (case in point; this helicopter), as well as a large does of corporate espionage from passport-granted Chinese nationals working here in American industries coupled with large-scale data thefts through sophisticated hacking. "Guest" above is certainly wearing rose-colored glasses with regards to the work ethic of China as compared to Western countries. Having dealt with this problem in the past at two different corporations, I'm not glossing over anything when i state that China is subsidizing it's lack of home-grown technology through intellectual piracy; a lot of it state sponsored. there is not a question of Western work ethic involved here. just ask yourself this question: who is stealing from whom? the US isn't stealing Chinese technology; the theft is going from West to East.

Yeah and your German rocket scientists were better than our German rocket scientists...
It's blindingly obvious that everyone steals from the leaders...that's the price one pays for pushing out the frontiers...I'm sure someone stole gunpowder from the Chinese, but it was a while back.
Dunno where you are from but I'll bet your country has stolen it's share of trade secrets, technology etc... but maybe the rest of the world didn't whinge about it so much?
Del

If'n yez run into John Harrisons ghost thank him for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer. There's a world of gratitude (and just as many beers in his name) from those who didn't perish at sea.........

Duck, 36' Alberg

Don't belittle Chinese potential. They Blew their first fusion device back in 1960, and have several satellites of their own design, floating above. And this is only what we know of...

"and have several satellites of their own design, floating above."

but they were launched using secret missile guidance technology sold to them by Loral Space Systems. And I'm sure the Chinese stole plenty of Top Secret satellite technology while they were at it. Seems Loral needed to launch more satellites than the Americans and the French could supply rockets for. So they cut a deal withthe Clinton administration to let them use Chinese Long March rockets. But there was a problem. Long Marches had this bad habit of blowing up or going off course and the range safety officer had to blow them up. Thier guidance systems were for sh!t. So Loral cut another deal with the Clintons, they would give them American rocket and guidance technology to improve the accuracy and reliability of the Long March and in return the Clintons would get a whole bunch of under the table campaign contributions from Chinese-Americans who were secretly working for the ChiComs.

So Loral got it's satellites launched on Chinese boosters, and China got lots of rocket technology, so now their ICBM's which used to have an over 60% failure rate and horrible accuracy can now hit thier targets within 60 feet and have closer to a 90% reliability rate. And one of the architects of that scheme is currently our Secretary of State. Who also by the way got lots of large donations from chinese americans who could not possibly have afforded those donations back when she was running for president. Obviously the money came from the PRC and they were merely fronts.

Just remember the only difference between a peaceful satellite booster and an ICBM is the payload.

This by the way means that instead of putting huge city buster 100 megaton warheads on hundreds of missiles with the hope that maybe 40% came within a couple miles of hitting their target, now they can put smaller 1 megaton or even 100 kiloton MIRVs on each missile and count of about 90% of them geting within feet of their target. That means that the Long March is now a "First Strike" missile capable of taking out individual missile silos and disarming their enemy before they can retaliate. It changes the nature of ICBM warfare by a huge amount. Nuclear warfare then becomes "winnable" in many people's eyes. This is a Very Bad Thing.

PAY DIRT!! Thanks for pointing this out. Thumbs Up!

The Chinese are doing exactly what the former Soviet Union (and present Russian Republic) has done in the past.

Case in point: in the late 40's, shortly after WWII, the UK government okay the sale of Rolls Royce jet engines to the Russians. Up to the point, the Russians were having great difficulties with their own jet engine designs (even with the help of captured German scientists and engineers). After the sale, they broke the contracts with RR and copied verbatim the RR turbojet engines for inclusion into the MIG-15 jet fighter airframe. And we all know what part that fighter played in the Korean War where it was flown by N. Koreans, but also the Chinese and Soviet pilots. Without the RR engines to copy, the Russians would have bee light-years behind in military jet aircraft development. The same can be said today with the Chinese government, which is still Communist. Watch, in a few years those Pratt & Whitney jet engines that Dell mentioned will be copied verbatim by the Chinese!

While I do agree its fine not to reinvent the wheel, but in the same token I think that it's quite a different story to steal & copy your potential enemy's toys and gadgets that may be some day be turned around used against the originator.

BTW, when did they stop hanging spies in the USA???? Maybe it should be re- instituted to thwart espionage at all levels, industrial and governmental.

Hello Guys and Gals,

Unfortunately lately the Chinese have made significant technical gains in the aeronautical arena mainly though a massive espionage effort primarily focused on US and western Euro aerospace companies as well as being to make inroads into several National Defense Departments.......one just has to look at the technical theft of the Lockheed F-35A Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) during the past few years......and that's probably only the tip of the iceberg.

Next surprise up is the maiden flight of their own F-22 Raptor-like Generation 2 Stealth Fighter. And please don't tell me that they didn't steal the technical secrets for that aircraft's development from the USA....they just lopped-off 20 years of Stealth technology R&D with that espionage coup!

It's too bad that Congress and the President axed the F-22 procurement program. I can guarantee dollars to donuts that when the Red Chinese unveil their brand new Stealth fighter in the next few years you'll see the fur flying yet again in DC....heads will roll... that's a given!

Del;

No country is innocent when it comes to this topic; the Chinese have taken it to levels unheard of. Sending manufacturing overseas to China has been a boom to their intellectual piracy industry. I've work with companies who, in the interest of a lower-cost manufacturing process, shipped their product overseas. then, a short time later, they end up competing against their own products, because the Chinese manufacturer has "borrowed" their intellectual property, and knocked off their product. then they either sell it as their own, or sell the data to another Chinese manufacturing company. Del, this isn't the same thing as your flippant comment of German rocket engineers; the situation was completely different. either you're too naive to know about what's going on (in which case you shouldn't comment on it), or you're part of the problem and turn a blind eye towards it. it's all fun and games and snarky comments on forums such as this until your job is impacted by it. perhaps your tone would be different after experiencing it firsthand.

No one wants to waste a lot of effort re-inventing the wheel, so the starting point for most projects in any country is to examine the current state of the art.
It is intensely naive to think otherwise.
I can't see what the fuss is about...do you think they should maybe be copying a Wright Brother's plane? Or deliberately locking themselves away from any external source of information in some dark cave?

The West has exploited cheap labour and appropriated intellectual property for years. It's ok if we do it or use protectionism, but we cry foul as soon as someone else does it.

Also it is very common for companies to sell off their old tooling and designs to less 'developed' countries. So old 'copies' are still bing made...you can buy a Royal Enfield 500cc single cylinder motorbike built in India and imported to the UK
Del

Oh, our dear lovely Del...

Of course I don't expect the Chinese to watch pigeons and deduce from scratch all the laws of aerodymics, eventually working up to a helicopter. Virtually everyone relies on pre-existing technology to make progress. However in this case to crow that they've "developed their own" when in fact they've apparently just copied something else virtually verbatim is nonsense.

Try this for comparision: I've just written a fantastic new novel. I call it "War and Peace". It's based on Tolstoy's novel, but I improved it and made it completely unique by leaving out one comma. Now tell me what a brilliant author I am!

See?

It's not development. It's duplication plus a dab of new paint.

And as those ersatz Royal Enfield motorbikes (which, btw, I'd love to have if you've got a spare in the shed) I'll betcha my ham-n-cheez sammich that the manufacturers ain't cranking out press releases claiming that they originated the design.

But Del, the theft of State Secrets to advance one's own military might than in turn can threaten the remaining world is whole different matter!

It's akin to Hitler's Third Reich stealing Britain's Radar Technology before the outbreak of WWII in 1939. Had the Nazi do so and learned the intricate secrets of the UK's radar setup, then there would have been the possibility that Britain would have loss then Battle of Britain to the Luftwaffe. Had that happened where the radar was circumvented and the RAF decimated then Hitler must likely would have launched Operation Sea Lion, the Invasion of Great Britain.....the end result being that the Allies probably would have lost WWII.

okay, Del; i'll partner up with you. i want you, personally, to invest your life savings, and invent a product. you send it to me and my manufacturing facility in China, and i promise you i'll manufacture it with cheap labor. then i'll take your CAD data, reverse-engineer your tools, whatever, and start producing it myself, and compete against you. oh, i'll also quit making it for you, forcing you to find higher labor to produce it. hey, i didn't "want to waste a lot of effort re-inventing the wheel", as you say, so i guess i'm in good conscience.

the only part of your last post that shows a grasp on real-world manufacturing processes the part of companies selling off their old products; that is fine! as an example, the Beetle has been licensed and made in Mexico for decades now. the key word you used was "SOLD"...not stolen, as you seem to be okay with.

You can't have it both ways...if they are only capable of slavish copying they you can design cleverer and better product...and if they are so stupid howcome they can reverse engineer software???? It's nigh impossible to work out someone elses code even with copious annotation.
It all smacks of the filthy imperialist paranoia and propaganda..."we will all be taken over by the yellow peril who will have us smoking heroin in waterfont dens.
We should nukem quick" Mentality...blame 'em for the demise of your/our car industry too and poisoning our kids..
Jeez it's all sooo last year...
Flounces off monitor left (tongue firmly in cheek)
Del

Del my good friend, there is a world of difference between copying concepts and ideas, and completely reverse engineering the product to the point that the parts are interchangable, and THAT is what we are discussing here. Your Royal Enfield Motorcycle analogy is not quite germane since the tooling and design was sold to them fair and square. Royal Enfield was getting out of the biz and sold it to someone who wanted to continue the product.

Here are two Chinese oilfield products I have come accross that are dimensionally identical in every way to legitimate products:

Cameron Blow Out Preventers (but instead of forging the parts they cast them, and as a result they leaked like a seive. they even had "Cameron" cast into the parts.)

National Oilwell Mud Pumps (the chinese design has a left handed pinion/bull gear but is otherwise identical, right down to the bolt holes. almost all the parts, except for the pinion and bull gear, are interchangable.)

Even the Chinese space capsule is a direct knock-off of the Soviet Soyuz design. Back in the 70's, a Soyuz capsule landed off course with a dead crew and the chinese reverse engineered it completely, to the point that the airlock is compatible with the ISS. I have heard a number of stories about counterfeit aircraft parts turning up in the supply chain as well.

Yeah, I don't dispute this, but you don't have to buy the rubish.... Unless of course greedy companies back home inport it to make a quick buck, same as they shipped out the production to cheap labour countries to make another quick buck.
They then sit and wring their hands in horror and shed crocodile tears as they count their proffit while the customer is on hold to a Mumbai 'customer services call centre' complaining about the quality...if you want to be jerked about for 30 minutes press #3.
It's called capitalism...I didn't hear anyone complaining through the good times.
It's the guy at the bottom, the worker who gets shafted everytime...I'm sure the captains of industry and the bankers can't see the problem.
And when they do screw up, somehow we get to bail 'em out...and still you want to beat up on the Chinese...man they are just shafting you same as your own people, but probably not so hard.
I mean this thread started as...'Oh look the Chinese have built a helicopter'
Whould it have hurt just to say..
'Oh yes, that's nice dear'

Anyhow, I think we'll just have to agree to dissagree, I shall watch with interest but stop shouting from soap box, have anice day y'all.

Del

Del, they don't reverse engineer computer code, they simply copy it wholesale.

In regards to copying software.....look what the Chinese copied recently verbatim: Windows XP. Prior to Christmas I bought an inexpensive Notebook from a eBay Seller located in Hong Kong. This was for my young Step-daughter. The Ebay Item description mentioned MS Windows XP software. Well, once it arrived and I got it started I found out immediately that it was nothing but a cheap Chinese copy of Win XP that barely ran! The Notebook itself was made right across the Hong Kong/Chinese Border in the PRC in whatever the name of the city was...in fact this Seller had 3 different addresses that Ebay/Paypal were not even aware of! The Notebook was nothing but a cheapo copy of a Dell Notebook and literally a piece of junk. It absolutely died 2 days after I received it. I never did get my money back from Paypal due to the mailing address problems, even though I have proven to them that I had sent it back to the Seller by Registered Mail...the Seller said he never received the returned merchandise. I'll never buy anything else again from Hong Kong or the PRC because of these problems!

Actually, I understand that Microsoft gave the PRC the source code to Windows XP because the PRC told them that if they do not they would be barred from selling XP in China or even importing for later export of XP to other countries. They claimed it was for reasons of "national security". This is one of the reasons why the Chinese Hackers have been having a field day of late, they have the keys to the castle.

BTW, If the link in post #3 is right it uses Pratt and Whitney engines, (an American company I believe). So they are helping support US industry

Maybe look at this thread, an oportunity to sell more stuff.
Del

it only takes one post to show everyone what working knowledge level you have of a particular topic; Del's lack of depth on this topic is sharply obvious to everyone else reading this thread. it took until the Del's last post for me to clearly understand the position he's coming from (capitalism = evil), and to realize that he's perfectly happy with intellectual piracy, and has probably benefited from it in some way in the past. if you are also into aviation (as i am), you can read about some of the backstory to China's "development" of their own indigenous aerospace industry if you read the forums devoted to this kind of thing (heck, even reading Combat Aircraft, which i have a subscription to, will shed light on some of this). the helicopter in question is a licensed copy of the Super Frelon, called the Z-8. in the mean time, AVIC "redesigned" the Z-8 and are now calling it their own AC313. unfortunately for the smart Chinese (Del), they copied a 60 year old helicopter that is also unfortunately one of the heaviest in the world. please forgive me for being underwhelmed by the development prowress of this superpower.

also, take note of the following in the topic of this thread: "..built by the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China..." again, state-sponsored and controlled intellectual piracy, corporate espionage, and reverse engineering are the norm for the ChiComs. everyone seems to be aware of it (except for possibly Del).

hey, i never read a definitive answer from you, Del; are you gonna allow me to manufacture a product for you, then "borrow" it from you and let me claim i developed it on my own?

Ok, As you are addressing me personally, here goes.

1.(capitalism = evil). This is your simplistic interpretation of my words....
I'm just saying the situation at present (with ref to jobs dissapearing overseas) is a result of the current implementation of capitalism.
There is no problem per se with capitalism, just the implementation.
An example:-
Say you are a shareholder of a US manufacturer who wants to sell up to a big company who will move operations to a cheap labour country, you have some say you could vote no ... but, if your shares are held by a big bank or pension fund they have a duty to go for maximum proffit, not the good of you, the workers, the country or the manufacturer in question...so of course they sell up (because they hold the shares bought with the deposits of many small savers/investers like yourself) and the work dissapears.
Who's fault is that? Not capitalism, but short-termism by financial institutions. How do you think the recent banking melt down happened? Who's fault was it, you? Shareholders? The Chinese? Capitalism? No, none of these.

2. I never said I'm happy with intellectual piracy, but some of the posters here want it both ways... eg a Windows knock off operating system coppied "verbatim" which doesn't work... D'uh? If it was a verbatim copy it would work at least as well as the original.

3.The helicopter in question is a licensed copy of the Super Frelon. Your words, my boldimication. This contradicts your assertions that they don't pay for anything.

4.They copied a 60 year old helicopter. Well that puts in sort of in the ball park of my Royal Enfield...and it's hardly the 'stealing of new technology' that you were complaining about.

5.state-sponsored and controlled intellectual piracy, corporate espionage, and reverse engineering are the norm for the ChiComs.
Yes and the US doesn't steal technology? C'mon of course they do, my Dad used to work in the military sector and on a visit to the states one of his developments 'went missing'. Within a months you boys had exactly the same kit.

6.hey, i never read a definitive answer from you, Del; are you gonna allow me to manufacture a product for you, then "borrow" it from you and let me claim i developed it on my own? Do you really want an answer to a rhetorical question? Yes if you like...Maybe you'd like to exploit my improvemnts to the Chinese repeating crossbow.

There I've answered with a series of numbered points for your convenience, feel free to address them at your leisure (or at least before the thread gets pulled). If you pay any attention to any of them please let it be point 1. Your thoughts on that one and specifically the example might be interesting.
Damn you've made me exceed my brevquot.

Del

Del, The US and the UK had a lot of back door agreements where things "went missing" and turned up in the other country's inventory shortly thereafter and it was done that way to give "plausible deniability" to the parties involved. Just like how that plutonium from Savannah River turned up in Israel along with the plans for an American B-61 warhead.... the Americans claimed that the Israelis "stole" it, but the truth was it was given to them with full knowledge of all involved on the sly back in the 1960's. This is not quite the same thing.

Would you agree that when the US started buying up the UK's debt back during the second world war and by doing so required them to buy from us their navy needs, not from Japan anymore, that this caused the Japanese to set their sites on the US as a threat to their countries economy?

If so, then what happens when China does the same as we did and our country allows China to buy up our debt? The same thing could happen, could it not? Because they would own our debts and we would have to do as they wanted us too, is this not correct?

And to believe all these threads started with a comment and pic...... The pic has one nice thing to it, it's Red, White and Blue!

Actually I believe the primary bone of contention was an oil embargo of Japan in retaliation for their refusal to withdraw from Southern Indochina. Not having any oil of their own, japan was pushed to the wall and retaliated.

I was not taught either of these views in school and I am trying to find all the truth with our history that I was not taught, you know uncovering the lies and finding the truth, I will see what I can dig up; interesting.

Del;

1. is moving work offshore to a country like China the correct thing to do? no. i can pretend to be a shareholder or controlling board member, and then say i would vote "no", but that's just an empty statement from me. why is China's labor so cheap? you can google this as easily as anyone can and find reasons from manipulating their Yuan to complete control by their government over their economy, etc. i'll take your clarification at face value and agree with you that the ever-reaching quest for razor-thin margins without regard to anything else is short-sighted and self-destructive. but that argument can be made for an inter-country change of suppliers, taking China completely out of that argument. my issue is with China's practices, but i don't see you taking issue with that. now, do i have a problem with manufacturing going to a lower-cost center? no; but i have deep issues with China's blatant piracy and intellectual theft. practices which they *have* to follow to compete globally, because the only thing they have to offer is cheap labor. that's it!

3. yes, this is an example just like what i referenced in my prior posts; they had a *license* for the Super Frelon. then, they took that, and "borrowed" the plans and technology for it, to produce their own. the fact that it was under license made it that much easier to steal. want to see how much they've infiltrated Western aviation manufacturers? do a search for "JXX Chinese Stealth Fighter" and look at the photos for it.

4. i never narrowed my issues with "new" technology. they steal everything without prejudice.

Del, i don't know anything about you, and giving you the benefit of the doubt i think you're not a moron; i would just ask that you don't have your head stuck in the sand with respect to China and their technology "development", which you are paying for, as well, the Chinese are stealing from the UK just as rampantly as the US. you or your company may spend millions to develop a product or technology, and the Chinese can grab it, saving the developmentmoney and time, then put their cheap labor into action, and put a hurt on you.

the exchange has been fun and entertaining, at least.

"they steal everything without prejudice."

Exactly, that is what their country thrives on. Just sadly our goverment does not care for it's people or their long term well being and are willing to do whatever it takes at the moment for them to gain their so called "power", which is crumbling around them now, and so they sell us out or allow countries to so call "steal our secrets."