CHINA’S NEW ATTACK HELICOPTERS ARE UNDERPOWERED — LET THEM STAY THAT WAY: According to this post, China thought it could get away with using French or U.S. engine designs in its new Z10 helicopter gunships. In the case of the French WZ16 engine design “the joint [French-Chinese] development agreement specified that the WZ16 would not be used in military helicopters. China thought they could get around that but failed.” Paris to Beijing: Mais non.

China also failed to pinch a U.S.-designed helicopter engine that’s built in Canada.

Excerpt:

Pratt & Whitney Canada was taken to court by the U.S. government because the Chinese seemed intent on building the Z10 with the “civilian use only” PT6C-67C engine. The Canadians did not sell any more engines to China, which meant that the Z-10 had to enter mass production with a one third less powerful Chinese WZ9 engine.

Not only no, but Hell no.

Economic kicker: “China has had no success in finding export customers for the Z10.”

This post is packed with detailed technical info — and the good news that France and the U.S. are enforcing contracts that affect national security.

RELATED: Here’s a rather dramatic photo of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, which the post linked above calls “currently the most popular such [attack] helicopter in the world with over 2,000 built so far and over a dozen export customers so far.”