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.