1/72 Hobby Boss WZ-10 CAIC Helicopter

Gallery Article by Santiago Duarte on Nov 23 2015

 

      

The WZ-10 (Wuzhuang Zhisheng-10 WZ),... = Wuzhuang Zhisheng, ..... literally "armed helicopter") is an attack helicopter developed by the People's Republic of China. Although designed primarily for anti-tank missions, it is also thought to have secondary air to air capabilities. It is currently being produced by Chinese Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAIC) and China Helicopter Research and Development Institute (CHRDI), both based in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province.

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The WZ-10 has the configuration of a conventional attack helicopter, with the pilot and gunner sitting in tandem. The main rotor blade consists of five, while the tail rotor has four. The two motors are situated behind the cabin on both sides of the fuselage and each have infrared suppressors. The integrated armament consists of a cannon (possibly 30 mm) installed under the nose.

The WZ-10 posses a modern interior with LCD display and system control type fly-by-wire, also has detectors in the nose of the aircraft so it probably contains an ultimate optical and infrared camera (FLIR) and a laser rangefinder, like the AH-64 Apache.

In March 2013 General Designer of JSC "Kamov" Sergei Mikheyev in the Heli-Expo show in Las Vegas reported that the WZ-10 helicopter is based on the preliminary design of "Project 941", developed by the design office Kamov Custom for the Chinese government in 1995. "For obvious reasons, this information is kept secret" - he added.

My model is from Hobby Boss, in 1:72 scale, corresponds to the WZ-10 prototype with the exhaust engines turned upside up, instead of the further final configuration (Z-10) with the mandatory change of the engines and its exhausts turned laterally, that´s why this model has the similarly NATO´s blue color scheme instead of the ‘blackish’ one for the final production.

Santiago Duarte

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Photos and text © by Santiago Duarte