China replacing their Z-8 (Super Frelon clone) with Z-20 (Black Hawk clone)...

I'll shout this to the rooftops.  We made the monster that is modern day China.  Between greedy capitalists that wanted to make money on the back of poorly paid labor to maximize profits in the US, to idiot politicians/think tanks that decided that by offshoring our production to a backwards (at the time) communist country that we could get them to flip to becoming a democracy, the results are the same.

We created Frankenstein's monster that will challenge us for our very existence.

The funny thing (not funny funny but funny ironic) is that two high profile early trade items are replacing each other and are/have form the backbone of their rotor winged aviation.

The French went against all common sense and sold them Super Frelons back in the day and Sikorsky did the same with a few models of the Black Hawk.

Now?

Now check this out via China Defense Blog.

The PLA Army Aviation has not been happy with their Changhe Z-8A mainly due to its low performance, heavy maintenance overhead and worst of all, prone to stall at mid-air (here). After only 6 years of service  the 76th LH Brigade is ready to rip-and-replace it with Z-20.

The Z-8A variant is in limited service with the PLA, no one will miss them when they are gone.  The improved B, K, S and J variants seem to enjoy a greater success with the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

My only hope?  I hope that whoever was stupid enough to make these deals has a child that is involved on the battlefield in the future fight.

I wonder how they'll feel about their grandparents then?