With the rapid development of China’s economy andthe reform of low altitude airspace management, huge market potential of civil helicopters is increasingly apparent andgeneral aviation with helicopters has been applied in different aspects of people’s livelihood. However, civil helicopter industry failed to flourish with civil aviation because of long term airspace control policy. Foreign helicopter brands have seized China’s civil helicopter market, which brings about the low market share of domestic helicopter brands, inconsistent with the huge market capacity.SWOT analysis is adopted to evaluate the development of civil helicopters in China, reaching the conclusion that China’s helicopter industry is in a sunrise state and making different development advice according to different development strategy areas.