Type 701 Light Helicopter

The 701 helicopter was designed and produced after a foreign helicopter, the US Bell 047, by the Harbin Aircraft Factory. The Type 701 featured many of the the unmistakable features of the Bell 047, such as the triangular-section exposed fuselage truss, 'bubble' cockpit with side-byside seats, skid landing gear, twin cigar-shaped fuel tanks flanking the rotor mast, two-blade see-saw type ma in rotor, two-blade tail rotor with a curved rotor guard, triangular ventral fin and low-set stabilisers with endplate fins.

But the Model 701 was not a straight copy of the Bell 47G. The most noticeable difference lay in the powerplant - the 270-hp Lycoming TVO-435 vertically-mounted flat-six engine was replaced by a 260-hp Zhuzhou Engine Factory HS-6C (C hinese-built Ivchenko AI-14R) nine-cylinder radial mounted so that the crankshaft was disposed vertically. The cockpit had a simplified design with a rather smaller glazing area, and the shape of the fuel tanks was also different.

A semi-rigid rotor with two adhesive blades was used. It had a welded frame fuselage. A ski type landing gear made it possible to land on a snow and ice surface or on a marshland. Its successful first flight was made on 23 January 1970. Weidong Machinery Factory in Jinan was tasked with series production, building a small number of Model 701s.