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Hot new helicopter/rotorcraft news

IKE said:
Like others have said, depending on weight and environment, a bigger engine means the transmission torque limit will be the constraint in more of the operating region. I expect (hope) Seahawk 2.0 will have a beefier transmission, but bigger engines would help with high/hot ops.

I don't have any data on the new engines, but I'd bet lots of money it's an extra 100 nmi OR extra 45 min on station. Max range is effectively time spent at max range airspeed and trades directly with max endurance time. 100 nmi is close to 45 min at V_range, and either of those is a significant increase (like having a 600-lb internal aux tank situated behind the copilot...RIP Ocean Hawk)
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Wasn't it 714 lbs in the internal aux? And made for an 'awesome' pax seat on the DLQ 500....Sorry, couldn't help myself.....
 
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Hey, it's China. My son toured a factory in China with water dripping from the ceiling, where a cable, ran from an open Junction/bus box across the wet floor to a machine with exposed electrical contacts that occasionally smoked. He felt like he was lucky to escape with his life.
 
wink said:
Hey, it's China. My son toured a factory in China with water dripping from the ceiling, where a cable, ran from an open Junction/bus box across the wet floor to a machine with exposed electrical contacts that occasionally smoked. He felt like he was lucky to escape with his life.
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I am certain there are equal stories in China about American manufacturing / industry :)

For the young officers on this forum, being dismissive of China's capabilities is at our own military and economic peril (they know this already of course). Apple trained it's tech manufacturing base of engineers and managers over decades. I would recommend Patrick McGee's Apple In China for a great read on the subject. GE, Siemens, Bosch, et al did the same with their heavy industry base. There are few areas of material science that keep China at bay but not for long. I would argue the Harbin Z-20 helo is as good or better than anything LM/Sikorsky can put out in 2026.

Despite tariffs, executive orders, "forge America", etc I think America will never, never be a leader in raw manufacturing scale/quality ever again. Thank god we have tech infrastructure, elite universities, the best healthcare capabilities on the planet, the ability to feed the world, and a healthy service/consumer based economy underneath it all.

I've been sourcing repair parts for my BMW motorbike direct from China retail sites and the parts are dead on in quality and finish to their OEM Berlin made counterparts.
 
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ChuckMK23 said:
I would argue the Harbin Z-20 helo is as good or better than anything LM/Sikorsky can put out in 2026.
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An interesting statement since you've also stated you don't really know what the capabilities are of our -60s are.

ChuckMK23 said:
I've been sourcing repair parts for my BMW motorbike direct from China retail sites and the parts are dead on in quality and finish to their OEM Berlin made counterparts.
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No hate here...I'll be interested to see how you find the long term durability to be. When I was shopping for new ignition coils for my BMW recently, "the brand" to get which had been the OEM had moved their manufacturing to China. BMW no longer uses them as their OEM and the reviews quickly dropped after the move, with lots of reports of early failures of the coils.

Fortunately there was another OEM that was still being made in Turkey that still seemed to last.
 
ChuckMK23 said:
I am certain there are equal stories in China about American manufacturing / industry :)

For the young officers on this forum, being dismissive of China's capabilities is at our own military and economic peril (they know this already of course)...Despite tariffs, executive orders, "forge America", etc I think America will never, never be a leader in raw manufacturing scale/quality ever again. Thank god we have tech infrastructure, elite universities, the best healthcare capabilities on the planet, the ability to feed the world, and a healthy service/consumer based economy underneath it all.

I've been sourcing repair parts for my BMW motorbike direct from China retail sites and the parts are dead on in quality and finish to their OEM Berlin made counterparts.
Click to expand...

I would argue one of the 'peak' manufactured industrial products in the world right now is probably modern jet engines, something that only 3 manufacturers came make the best of and two of them are American. There are a few other countries/manufacturers that can make world-class engines but not the full enchilada that the 'Big Three' can make.

Russia and China have tried for years and make okay engines, but they just aren't as good as the best and haven't gotten there even after massive investment on China's part. So while they can make the world's best cell phones and TV's, and now apparently really good EV's too, there is something just not there that gets them over the finished line when it comes to jet engines...which should tell you something.

All that said, I think in their case 'good enough' will get them a lot further than a lot of folks presume when it comes to a lot of military gear. And in that case some of their stuff is world class, not all of it by any stretch but possibly 'good enough' to get the jobs done they need.
 
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