Attack helicopter

An attack helicopter is an armed helicopter with the primary role of an attack aircraft, with the capability of engaging targets on the ground, such as enemy infantry and armoured fighting vehicles. Due to their heavy armament they are sometimes called helicopter gunships.

Weapons used on attack helicopters can include autocannons, machine guns, rockets, and guided anti-tank missiles such as the Hellfire. Many attack helicopters are also capable of carrying air-to-air missiles, though mostly for purposes of self-defense. Today's attack helicopter has two main roles: first, to provide direct and accurate close air support for ground troops, and the second, in the anti-tank role to destroy enemy armor concentrations. Attack helicopters are also used to supplement lighter helicopters in the armed scout role. In combat, an attack helicopter is projected to destroy around 17 times its own production cost before it is destroyed.

Background and development

CAIC Z-10

The CAIC Z-10 (Chinese: 直-10 for 直升机), also called WZ-10, is an attack helicopter developed by the People's Republic of China. It is designed primarily for anti-tank warfare missions but has secondary air-to-air capability as well. It was designed by Kamov design bureau of Russia under a contract by the Chinese government. It was further developed and flight tested by the 602nd Research Institute under Wu Ximing (吴希明) and is being built by Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAIC).

Nicknames of characters in the Chinese classic novel Water Margin have been used to name Z-10 and its smaller comrade Harbin Z-19: Z-10 is called Fierce Thunderbolt (Pi Li Huo, 霹雳火), the nickname of Qin Ming, while Z-19 is called Black Whirlwind (Hei Xuan Feng, 黑旋风), the nickname of Li Kui.

Development

Early exploration

In 1979, the Chinese military studied the problem of countering large armour formations. It concluded that the best conventional solution was to use attack helicopters. Eight Aérospatiale Gazelle armed with Euromissile HOT were procured for evaluation.

Helicopter

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward, and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft cannot perform.

The word helicopter is adapted from the French language hélicoptère, coined by Gustave Ponton d'Amécourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix (ἕλιξ) "helix, spiral, whirl, convolution" and pteron (πτερόν) "wing". English-language nicknames for helicopter include "chopper", "copter", "helo", "heli", and "whirlybird".

Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 being the first operational helicopter in 1936. Some helicopters reached limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built. Though most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, it is the single main rotor with anti-torque tail rotor configuration that has become the most common helicopter configuration. Tandem rotor helicopters are also in widespread use due to their greater payload capacity. Coaxial helicopters, tiltrotor aircraft, and compound helicopters are all flying today. Quadcopter helicopters pioneered as early as 1907 in France, and other types of multicopter have been developed for specialized applications such as unmanned drones.

Attack

Attack may refer to:

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