June.23 (China Defense Mashup Reporting by Johnathan Weng) — Before the service of trouble-annoying WZ-10, WZ-9 armed helicopter is still playing the key role of “Air anti-tank Strike” and “Close Air Support” in PLA Army. This WZ-9 helicopter has been installed with a electronic/optical sensor pod on the rotor hub. It is unclear that this pod is for Fire Control or battlefield Reconnaissance.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:32 am
A close look at the mast head indiactes a seemingly flat area. An educated guess is that it is EO payload for both fire control & Battlefield recce. However that would not rule out a future “Longbow” kind of a payload. Intersting photo.