Mi-24PN information in the Jan 08 AFM

In the Jan 08 issue of AFM, an article by A. Mladenov goes over various Mi-24 upgrade options, including Russia’s “ultimate” Mi-35M upgrade (i.e. Venezuela’s HINDs) – the cheap Mi-24PN upgrade, and the intermediate Mi-24VK-2/PK-2.

In relation to the Mi-24PN, it references any anonymous pilot with “a wealth of combat experience” with some negative observations on the Mi-24PN (after his first flights on it), including the assertion that the Mi-24PN is not a lightened derivative of the Mi-24P for better performance, as widely advertised (in brochure data) – the Mi-24PN is actually 280kg heavier than the original Mi-24P, with 60kg of ballast in the tail boom to maintain the center of balance disturbed by the installation of the “Zarevo” night sight.

How can this be? The manufacturer’s webpage for the Zarevo indicates that the total weight of the system doesn’t exceed 120.5kg, without cables – clearly, this doesn’t account for the alleged weight increase.

More importantly, it’s a fact that the retractable landing gear was replaced with lighter, fixed landing gear on the Mi-24PN – surely this netted a substantial weight saving (anyone know how much?).

(the other observations are less surprising – ie. the Mi-24PN is slower than the Mi-24P, there are less options for “dumb” armament (i.e. no big rockets, iron bombs, bomblet/ mine dispensers), the Zarevo is limited and less capable compared to state-of-the-art gyrostablisied gimballed payloads, the ONV-1 NVGs performance is not as good as those of the West).

Anyone else got more information?

Addendum: personally, I found the coverage for the Mi-24PN somewhat lacking – it mentions nothing of the shortened stub wings with the Mi-28N style armament set-up (ie. 16 Shturm/ Ataka ATGMs plus rockets) or the fixed landing gear.