China may be developing a tactical transport helicopter with a stealth capability. This is what a mockup of an aircraft that appears in a video on Chinese Jiangxi Television suggests.
The scale model appears to be a stealth variant of the Z-20, a helicopter developed by AVIC that closely resembles the Sikorsky H-60 Blackhawk.
Not surprisingly, the version capable of going unnoticed by radar also recalls another project associated with the Blackhawk, the mysterious stealth model that was used by the US Armed Forces in the attack on the complex where terrorist Osama Bin Laden was located in 2011 in Pakistan.
Showcasing a fuselage of faceted surfaces, rotors with no visible moving parts, and heat and noise suppressors, the mockup did not have any information revealed in the video, but indicates that China is pursuing that capability in its military forces.
For Western analysts, the supposed Z-20 ‘invisible to radars’ may have been conceived based on espionage related to one of the helicopters that took soldiers to Bin Laden’s bunker and ended up making an emergency landing.
Damaged, the aircraft was destroyed by the team, however, most of the components, such as the tail, were partially intact.
Although vehemently denied by China, industrial espionage has been quite evident in the country’s aerospace projects. The Biden administration has just announced a list of 59 Chinese companies that are banned from receiving US investments.
Among them is the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), precisely the manufacturer of the Z-20 helicopter.
