Due to delays in deliveries, Pakistan announced the cancellation of an order for 30 units of the Turkish ATAK helicopter T129. The order had been placed in mid-2018 with Turkish Aerospace Industries and was valued at US$1,5 billion.
As the years went by, the order faced successive delays due to the fact that the United States did not issue permission for the export of the helicopter engines, becoming the last straw for Pakistan, which ended up reviewing its need to rely on Turkish attack helicopters.
Interestingly, the engine that had its permission not granted by the United States is the LHTEC T800-4A, being a variant of the CTS800 engine tly developed and produced by Rolls-Royce and Honeywell. The LHTEC T800-4A has a power of 1.014 kW, requiring two engines to power the T129.
Without receiving any T129 units, Pakistan saw the Philippines, a country that placed an order for six units in 2018, receive its first units of the same model last December, after the United States granted permission to export the controversial engines.
Now, Pakistan is negotiating with China to buy the Z-10ME, an advanced attack helicopter capable of carrying out day and night missions in any circumstances produced by the Chinese Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation.
At comparison levels, the Z-10ME has similar capacity to the ATAK T-129, in addition to having weapons systems (air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, rockets and cannons) and state-of-the-art equipment. If negotiations go ahead, Pakistan will become the first international customer for the Z-10ME.
With information: Aviation Online
