A website for Chinese newspaper Global Times recently published photos of a new Japanese military helicopter “design concept”. Too bad it’s not real. It’s not even made by the Japanese military.
On Global Times’ website Huanqiu.com, the text reads, “This appeared online today; it seems to be a concept for a Japanese Self Defence Force armed helicopter made by the Japanese military complex.” The paper also added, “One can see that because this type of technology is not yet available, it looks like something out of science fiction.”
The photos were published online in the Global Times‘ “military” section. There was a gallery of “Fuujin Attack Helicopter” images, art site DeviantArt URL watermarks and all.
The story even appeared on Chinese news source Xinhua, which is like the Reuters or AP of China. The Xinhua story, which cites Global Times, also said that the Japanese Self Defence helicopter concept was “designed by a Japanese professional.”
On Chinese social networking site Weibo, people are baffled at how this helicopter would even fly. “This design looks cool but there isn’t anything special, does it even fly?” asked Weibo user hanyu_cger. “Without a tail rudder how does it manoeuvre?” Others thought it looks more like a comic book design than a military one. Some even claimed it was totally real, while others said it was a Japanese rip-off. Nobody really seemed to realise the DeviantArt URL (probably because it just looked like a string of English words).
On Chinese site NetEast, there are over 2400 comments regarding these photos. Folks, apparently, are still talking about the images.
Online in Japan, people were baffled too. On 2ch, some responded by saying things like, “What the hell is that?” Or “I want a plastic model version of this!”
Needless to say, the Fuujin Attack Helicopter is not a real military concept. Rather, Ridwan Chandra Choa, a digital artist who previously worked at Lucasfilm Animation in Singapore, created it and uploaded it to art site DeviantArt.
The Global Times and Xinhua are real news sources in China. It’s odd that they would use images with DeviantArt watermarks to scare up fear among readers about Japanese military and technological power. Maybe they didn’t know.
This is somewhat reminiscent of the time, however, when people online in Japan confused a Blizzard staffer’s digital mecha creations with US military hardware.
This past April, Choa wrote on his DeviantArt page, “Still looking for work and resting, relaxing a bit, doing personal works and stuff.” Maybe something good will come of this. If he hasn’t yet found a job, maybe Choa will get work? Is the Japanese military hiring?
日本自卫队未来武装直升机构想 [Global Times/Huanqiu.com]
Eric Jou contributed to this article.
Comments
11 responses to “Chinese Newspaper Confuses The Japanese Military With… DeviantArt”
*sigh – they’d better keep an eye out for the large ambulatory robots, hot cyborg women with skin that can turn them invisible, and retrofitted space battleships. Maybe they should write to their local Communist Party member and urge them to start taking orders for that Iranian stealth fighter, too.
The chinese are reverse engineering everything.
I design some bad ass war machines and post them on my deviant art.
The Chinese may make them reality.
😀 I change the future of warfare with machines shaped like goatse
That is… horrifying.
A gaping black hole devouring everything that stands in its way… *shudder*… I don’t think I can sleep again.
Welcome to the future.
Couple problems with the chopper design:
There’s no counter to the torque from the the rotors. Normally it’s done by a tail rotor, but they’re not too good for high-speed combat. Common alternatives are counter-rotating rotors, or a NOTAR system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAR). The artist says on DA that it uses NOTAR, but I can’t see it. he’s got the tail boom but no side vent. The hole at the end of the boom just looks like a jet exhaust. This could double as a NOTAR system, but again, it needs a side vent. That vent should also be aft of the tail wings/rudders to avoid screwing with your turning, otherwise said rudders are worse than useless.
Also, there’s too many blades on that top rotor. Without getting too technical, more rotors mean less efficiency for each rotor. The turbulence from each blade messes with the lift you’ll get from the following blade. For larger choppers, with much wider wingspans (and therfore more distance between blade-tips), you can have more blades, but you’ll rarely see more than five. On a chopper that small with blades that short you should have only three or four.
This helicopter would fly in highly fuel-inefficient circles; that sounds like good news for China, if it were true.
But still, cool picture
You must be fun at parties.
You just jealous of his superior interlect Cody
At the kind of parties my geek friends hold? Yeah actually he would.
(I ‘lol’ed though.)
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH comment of the day !!
Believe it or not there are notar systems now that dont require the exhaust to be on the tail boom but rather just aft of the engine. They just aren’t very practical right now 1: because its easier to put it at the end of the boom 2: Rotors are easier still 3: it costs too much to modify an engine compartment and engine to subsequently take and utilize it.
(edit: IF you look at the tail wheel area, there is a small pair of holes/vents, one on each side, that is just above the tail wheel its self. That could be the notar as i dont see any exhausts that would account for what i said earlier.)
As for the number of rotors blades.. you got me there, i’ve never really paid attention to the whole turbulence thing on helicopters
Also, dont use just wiki to present your findings, the site is a joke and while it has accurate basic data would get you shot if you used it at a job.
this could easily happen to anyone who cannot understand the language the url is written in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name
I seem to recall Kotaku making the exact same mistake before, then again kotaku isn’t really a real news outlet.
then again I could just be remembering wrong.
Whilst it’s an awesome design, the whole incident suspiciously sounds like ‘unemployed design artist creates news, to gather attention, and hopefully employment’.
With his talent, it shouldn’t be long before he’s picked up by someone.