Z-17 Chinese Medium Helicopter

Government-funded Chinese Medium Helicopter program in the 5.5 ton class, for civil and military applications. Design institutes 602 and 608 have been working on the program, with Western avionics planned. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with Agusta, which will provide transmissions and technical support. No design details yet available, but a prototype was scheduled to fly in late 2003.

Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp.'s (P&WC) knew from the start of the Z-10 attack helicopter project in 2000 that the Chinese were developing an attack helicopter and that supplying it with U.S.-origin components would be illegal. When the Chinese claimed that a civil version of the helicopter would be developed in parallel, PWC marketing personnel expressed skepticism internally about the �sudden appearance� of the civil program, the timing of which they questioned as �real or imagined.� PWC nevertheless saw an opening for PWC �to insist on exclusivity in [the] civil version of this helicopter� and stated that the Chinese would �no longer make reference to the military program.�

If there ever was a "Z-17 Chinese Medium Helicopter" the program seems to have been either confused with or overtaken by the Z-15.