As a new generation of 10-ton utility helicopter developed by China, the Z-20 has received widespread attention since its first public appearance, and its performance characteristics, which advanced technologies are used, combat uses, and which models will be developed in the future are all the focus of people's discussion and attention. So, what new technologies have been adopted in the avionics system that is the "brain" of the Z-20?
The Z-20 is equipped with a fully glassed cockpit with the elimination of pointer gauges
Vitrified cockpit
The Z-20 is the most complete avionics helicopter in the world's medium-sized universal transport helicopters, with a Doppler radar antenna mounted on the nose and a forward-looking infrared/optical probe under the nose; missile approaching alarms on both sides of the fuselage and rear (four); and three infrared jamming/foil emitters on both sides of the fuselage and under the abdomen of the front fuselage, each in a 90° configuration. There is a columnar satellite communication antenna in the front section of the tail beam, which first appeared on the Z-18 and was not seen on foreign transport helicopters. There are also VHF and UHF data link communication antennas on the tail beam, which reflects that the Z-20 attaches great importance to information-based combat capabilities in design; there is also a Beidou navigation antenna above the nose and the rear of the tail beam, and the avionics system is rich and complete. In addition, the Z-20 is also the first helicopter equipped with a fly-by-wire flight control system in China, which greatly improves its maneuvering performance.
With the Z-20 in service, its advanced avionics technology and the interior of the cockpit have also been exposed, attracting attention. At the Tianjin Direct Expo held on October 10, 2019, the Z-20 cockpit was unveiled for the first time, earning people's attention.
Judging from the relevant pictures, the Z-20 is equipped with a fully glassed cockpit and the elimination of pointer-type instruments. The fully glassed cockpit shows that the Z-20 adopts a data bus-based avionics system, which uses the data bus to organically connect the various systems together, realizing the integration of communication, navigation, flight and other functions, unified information processing and comprehensive display. In addition, the system can also add equipment as needed, such as adding external fuel tanks or external weapon systems, to expand the use of helicopters, thereby further improving the combat effectiveness of helicopters.
Detailed drawing of the interior of the straight-20 cockpit
The cockpit is composed of 5 multi-functional liquid crystal displays, surrounded by input buttons, and a variety of sensing instruments all over the aircraft, which can reflect the relevant situation on the screen in front of the driver in a timely manner, so that each pilot can easily see the various information of the helicopter from the display mounted on the opposite dashboard. Under normal circumstances, these multifunctional displays will display flight parameters, navigation and digital maps, powertrain information and alarm signals, as well as tactical information displays, which can guarantee all-weather helicopter flight in harsh climatic conditions. This greatly liberates the pilot, allowing the pilot to focus more on the mission and flight, and the ergonomics are good.
Night vision turret
In a news publicly reported by CCTV, Lu Fengrong, a pilot of the Wind and Thunder Air Show Team, revealed in an interview that the Z-20 has a night vision turret with infrared thermal imaging observation equipment under the nose, which is one of the important equipment for the Z-20 night combat, which can make the pilot's vision at night like daylight, which is also not available in foreign utility helicopters.
For helicopters that are good at low-altitude flight and combat, night flight is the most powerful helper for its penetration, and it is also a technology with high difficulty and high risk, so it can be said that this is a double-edged sword, and it also poses a high challenge to the flight technology of helicopter pilots. After all, at low altitude at night, the unexpected situations and obstacles encountered and the accompanying dangers are much higher than when flying at high altitudes, so there are often some helicopters that crash and other accidents due to poor vision and collisions with obstacles when flying at night. At the same time, due to poor line of sight at night, the observation of ground/air enemy situation is also more inconvenient.
The Z-20 has a night vision turret with infrared thermal imaging observation equipment under the nose, which can make the pilot's vision at night as if it were day
Previously, most military helicopters generally wore night vision helmets to enhance their observational vision at night when most military helicopters performed night missions, but the Z-20 was specially equipped with a night vision turret for night combat. It is reported that because the infrared thermal imaging observation device equipped with the night vision turret can observe a much farther field of view at night than the night vision helmet equipped by the average pilot, this allows the straight-20 pilot to see farther and clearer when performing low-altitude flight missions at night.
Advanced helmet display
Another major feature of the Z-20 avionics system is that it is equipped with an advanced helmet-mounted display. In the above-mentioned report, Lu Fengrong, a pilot of the Wind and Thunder Air Show Team, also said in an interview that the night vision turret with infrared thermal imaging observation equipment installed under the nose of the straight-20 can be linked with the helmet display of the straight-20 pilot, so that the obtained image can be transmitted to the pilot's eyes in real time, which allows the pilot to obtain the night vision screen from the helmet monitor through this system linked with the night vision turret without "looking down at the screen". Conduct night combat. This suggests that the Z-20 pilots are equipped with advanced helmet-mounted displays. The helmet display can project information directly onto the pilot's helmet, which can enable the pilot to obtain information efficiently in battle and improve the pilot's flight and combat efficiency.
Although China started late in the development of helmet displays, it has developed rapidly. As early as 2018, it was exposed on the Internet that China's Land Aviation Z-10 helicopter gunship has been using a newly designed advanced helmet display, using the same binocular holographic waveguide helmet display technology as the J-20 headset, with the following characteristics and advantages. First of all, the new helmet display uses a large diffractive lens, which is more advanced than two diffraction lenses, and its advantage is that it breaks the blind spot between the two lenses and also solves the problem of parallax. It covers most of the viewing angle of both eyes and is safer than the previous two diffractive lenses. At the same time, it can also present high-definition image quality images directly on the helmet monitor lens, such as aiming information, infrared images, flight data and symbol system information, which can obtain information more efficiently and conveniently, greatly improving attack efficiency and battlefield survival rate.
The Z-20 pilot is equipped with an advanced helmet-mounted display
Secondly, the overall structure of the new helmet is more reasonable. In the past, the helmet monitor used by the helicopter gunship pilots of our army had double lenses, and the whole helmet was quite heavy and looked very bloated and bulky. Heavy helmet displays have countless drawbacks, such as: due to the large quality, resulting in large inertia, inaccurate positioning in highly tense flights, affecting the accuracy of target positioning; long-term wearing of such a heavy helmet is not conducive to the health of pilots, easy to affect combat effectiveness. The new helmet-mounted display is different, its overall structure is more reasonable than in the past, lighter weight, improve the shortcomings of the past, simplify operation, improve efficiency.
Finally, the extension is more feature-rich. According to the analysis of many military experts, there is a camera device on the left side of the new helmet, which can provide additional photographic detection functions. Coupled with the overall weight optimization, it is likely that there are many more extra features that have not yet been disclosed.
The new helmet display has made a major breakthrough in technology and design, allowing pilots to obtain information efficiently and quickly on the battlefield, simplifying operations, and at the same time making up for some inherent shortcomings of helicopters, which fully demonstrates the rapid progress of China's military science and technology and shows the strength of our army in modern warfare. As one of the most advanced equipment in China at present, the new helmet display equipment Z-20 pilot is also a natural thing, which is of great significance to improving the combat effectiveness of the Z-20.
epilogue
All in all, the avionics system of the Zhi-20 is full of "black technology", which represents the highest technical level in China at this stage, which is of great significance for improving the combat effectiveness of the Zhi-20. As for what other "unique skills" the Z-20 avionics system has, we will wait and see.