Speaking of Zhi 20, everyone is no stranger. This fighter is a domestic 10-ton general-purpose helicopter, because it has a lot of similarities with the appearance and tactical positioning of the Black Hawk, and it will inevitably be discussed by military fans together. Recently, the chief designer of the Z-20, Chief Engineer Deng of the Helicopter Design Institute, also came to the front desk and talked about the past in the research and development process of the Z-20. He believed that the Z-20 surpassed the Black Hawk because technologies such as telex control reached None are used now.
According to public reports in the media, we have seen the memories of the Z-20 chief engineer about the development of Z-20. First of all, the positioning of the Z-20 by the chief engineer is the fourth-generation helicopter in China, and the important standard across generations is the use of the telex operating system, which is also the main feature of the fourth-generation helicopter. This is compared to the Black Hawk developed in the late Cold War. That said, it’s a big improvement. And there is still a lot of twists and turns about the fact that this fly-by-wire control system can finally be installed on the straight 20.
The fly-by-wire control system, also known as the fly-by-wire flight control, has been widely used in modern fighter aircraft, but this technology appeared relatively late in helicopters. The world’s first civilian helicopter to use the fly-by-wire system was the Bell 525 that only appeared in 2019, and this helicopter has also experienced the crash of the verification machine.
In terms of military helicopters, the NH90 in Germany only adopted the fly-by-wire flight control system in 2006. Relatively speaking, the Z-20 adopts a telex system. In the field of domestic helicopters, which was relatively limited in development at that time, it was a design idea to keep up with the global advanced level in one step. Of course, this kind of thinking has attracted the “attention” of many old experts from the very beginning. For example, Chief Engineer Deng recalled that during the demonstration stage of the 20th century, many old experts said that the design of a model is still based on success. Flight control system, is there any pilot who dares to test the flight for you?
In fact, there is a premise for saying this, that is, the fly-by-wire flight control system was generally considered to be unsafe at that time. Explain here, the fly-by-wire flight control system uses sensors and electrical signals, plus code to control the operation of the aircraft, while the traditional flight control uses the control rod system and the wire rope to control the helicopter. In the early helicopters using telex, a set of operating levers was generally equipped for backup, and it was used to replace when the telex method failed to increase safety.
In fact, until the research and development stage of the 20th, the flight control technology and code have been very mature. The research and development team has implemented it so that no backup is required, and the use of the telex flight control alone can be very safe. In the words of the chief engineer, I will bear the weight that should be carried, and I will also bear the weight that should not be carried. This is unacceptable. Switching between the other two systems is also risky. For a 10-ton helicopter, with an additional set of operating systems, this weight burden is too large. That’s why the chief engineer and R&D team insisted on using a single telex operating system, and the final test results also proved its reliability. In addition, the Z-20 has also achieved advanced levels in the active control of rotor vibration and active control of its own noise, which are also performances that the Black Hawk does not have.
In general, the domestic Z-20, as an advanced 10-ton general-purpose platform, is one of the performances of domestic helicopter technology. Some of the technologies used by the Zhi 20 have not appeared on the Black Hawk, so there is no such statement that the Black Hawk is a “reference machine”. If you want to call it another name for Zhi 20, then “Chinese Pastoral Eagle” personally thinks it is more suitable. Although it is a bit less domineering, it is different from “Black Eagle” spreading chaos around the world. Zhi 20 is to bring the world to the world. What’s wrong with a beautiful rural life called “Pastoral Eagle”?