Uhhh, China’s helicopter prototype looks exactly like a flying saucer

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Is it a bird, is it a plane… no, it’s China’s newest prototype attack helicopter.

Dubbed the “Super Great White Shark” by Chinese media, the helicopter has more in common with the popular description of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) than it does the Chinooks and Sikorskys of the helicopter world.

China’s new attack helicopter looks like a UFO

Don’t worry about seeing the flying saucer in the air anytime soon, the prototype is firmly grounded for now. When it was shown at the Tianjin China Helicopter Exposition last week, it was a non-flying shell. From the schematics, it feels more like a hovercraft or VTOL to me than a helicopter, covered with the blended-wing designs used by stealth aircraft.

• The aircraft is 25 feet long and almost 10 feet high, with space for two crew in the middle section
• All the rotors, turbines and engines are covered by an outer shell, giving it the ability to scatter radar

Back in the 1950s, at the height of UFO fever, a Canadian company almost got a similar UFO-shaped helicopter into service in the US military. The Avrocar as it was known, could only manage stable hovering if it was less than three feet from the ground, and had a max speed of 35 mph. I guess that wasn’t the source of all the UFO sightings then…

What do you think about this UFO-shaped helicopter? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• A nasty Samsung Galaxy S10 bug lets anyone with a fingerprint unlock it
• Skydio’s drone-in-a-box solution makes its new Skydio 2 drone fully autonomous
• The Panic Room: At least the robot uprising will be slow and largely ineffective
• Apple’s upcoming iPhone SE 2 is rumored to cost $399 and set to launch early 2020

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.