Design
Chief designer of the WZ-10 was Wu Ximing (吴希明) of the 602nd Research Institute, one of the Chinese top scientists involved in the 863 Program. Wu had earlier participated in the designs of the armed version of transport helicopters Z-8A and WZ-9. The WZ-10 is the first Chinese helicopter conceived of using paperless design, and the all-electronic/online design enabled the design work to be completed within a year. In order to complete the necessary development, the 602nd Research Institute and CAIC had jointly built a new engineering design center, industrial simulator, aircraft engine ground test center, fatigue laboratory, and rotary test platform (nicknamed as Iron Bird Platform, 铁鸟台). In the end of 2001, the final test was completed on the full-scale rotary test platform, paving the way for test flights.
Composite material is widely used in the WZ-10 but China faced difficulties in this field, particularly in the area of survivability during crashes. Huge efforts were spent to domestically develop composite materials able to provide comparable levels of survivability to Western counterparts. This achievement earned a 2nd place in the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND) progress reward.
Read more about this topic: CAIC WZ-10
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