Disclosure of Z-19 equipped with millimeter wave radar
Z-19 helicopter improved by the installation of a millimeter wave radar. Photos by Cui Yongfeng
According to the photos recently posted on the internet by a military forum, like US AH-64C/D Apache Longbow and Russian Mi-28N Night Hunter, China’s Z-19 armed helicopter has also been equipped with a millimeter wave radar, which looks very similar to the fire control radar on US AN/APG-78 Longbow.
Sources say that PLA’s Z-10 will also be upgraded by the installation of a millimeter wave radar.
As a result, China will be the third country in the world to have equipped its armed helicopters with millimeter wave radar.
The millimeter wave (MMW) fire-control radar (FCR) for Z-10 is developed by China Northern Electronic Co. (中国北方电子公司), a subsidiary of Norinco. This MMW FCR is fully solid state and fully digitized, weighing 69.5 kg, less than half of similar former Soviet system. In comparison, both the Russian Arabelet / FH-101 MMW FCR used on Kamov Ka-50N and the Ukrainian Khinzhal MMW FCR used on Mil Mi-28N weight around 150 kg.
In contrast to Russian system that uses two antennas, the Chinese MMW FCR adopts western approach of using a single antenna, similar to AN/APG-78 used for AH-64D Apache Longbow.
The radar is designated as YH, short for Yu Huo (浴火), meaning bathing in fire. YH MMW FCR is fully integrated with other subsystems of the onboard electronic warfare system, such as radar warning receivers (RWR), laser warning receivers (LWR), electronic support measures (ESM), and electronic countermeasures (ECM), with the entire EW system on board Z-10 named after the radar.
Due to the delivery of AH-64E armed helicopters to Taiwanese army, the PLA now pays great attention to improvement of its Z-10 and Z-19 helicopters.
One of the approaches for the improvement is the installation of millimeter wave radar on them to greatly improve their detection ability and fire control.
Source: mil.huanqiu.com “Disclosure of Z-19 equipped with millimeter wave radar”
http://errymath.blogspot.com/2014/01/disclosure-of.....vDo9fqs808
|