Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) has put on display its first unmanned combat helicopter AV500W for foreign buyers in a bid to enlarge scope to market its military drones abroad.
All of the military drones China has offered to the international market have been fixed-wing models, making the AV500W the first Chinese unmanned military helicopter available in that market, experts were quoted as saying.
Jiang Taiyu, one of the chief designers of AV500W, said the aircraft fired weapons during its maiden flight test in August.
The 7.2-meter-long aircraft
maximum take-off weight of 450 kilogrammes
maximum speed of 170 kilometres per hour and a flight ceiling of 4,000 meters
The helicopter is capable of carrying 120 kilogrammes of weapons and equipment. Its reconnaissance version can remain aloft for eight hours while the reconnaissance/combat model is a ..
"The helicopter is able to take off and land on almost any landform including plateaus and canyons. It can operate in cold and tropical environments. It will be useful in border patrols, counterterrorism operations and low-intensity conflicts because it can carry out very-low-altitude penetration and keep hovering for a while," he said.
An armed AV500W typically carries four air-to-ground missiles, which use radar homing technology for guidance. Each missile weighs 8 kilogrammes and can hit a target 5 kilometres away, the report quoted AVIC officials as saying.
It also can carry bombs or a machine-gun pod.
