ISLAMABAD – Pakistan will procure the Chinese-built Z-10 attack helicopterif Turkey and the United States fail to deliver on their orders of theT-129 and AH-1Z respectively, a senior offer said on 26 February.
Speaking at the IQPC International Military Helicopter conference inLondon, the commander of Pakistan’s Army Aviation, Major General SyedNajeeb Ahmed, said that the Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAIC)Z-10ME “remains an option” if the Turkish Aerospace T-129 and Bell AH-1ZViper prove to be unobtainable for different reasons.
The Pakistan Army has a pressing need to replace its 32 ageing Bell AH-1Cobra helicopters that have been in service for more than 30 years, withGen Ahmed’s predecessor, Major General Nasir D Shah, telling *Jane’s* andother defence media in January 2018, “The AH-1 helicopters have providedeffective close support for our ground forces engaged in counterinsurgency[COIN] operations, but they cannot be employed effectively in high-altitudeoperations above 8,000 ft.”
In the near-term, the army partially offset these limitations with the fourMil Mi-35s that it ordered from Russian some years ago, and which weredelivered to the country in late 2017.
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Further to the Mi-35s, it evaluated the AH-1Z, T-129, and the Z-10 attackhelicopters.
In January 2016 it was announced that Bell had been awarded a contract for12 AH-1Zs, and in April 2017 *Jane’s* reported that the first three of 12would be delivered in mid‐2017, with a second order to follow. However, theaircraft were yet to be delivered, and while there has been no officialstatement concerning reasons for delay it is understood to result from thecurrent strained Pakistan-US relations.
