November 4, 2002 at 1:34 am
Hello again.
I have been updating some coverwork on a book I wrote a couple of years back (one of about ten in a big pile in my cupboard).
Part of the book is set in 2028, and makes references to a series of fictional future Russian fighting helicopters.
I would like to make the story as believable and interesting as possible, and would like to run my fictional aircraft past a panel of aircraft experts before I finish it.
I greatly appreciate your interest and criticsm. Thanks and best regards- Nick.
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Mil Mi-40 Hades-A
Russian equivalent of the Sikorsky SH-70 Pavehawk, capable of carrying 24 troops and 2 crew. The aircraft’s role is primarily transport, but can carry external armaments in the form of rocket pods and a tilt-nose 26mm machine gun.
Mil Mi-40 Hades-C
An attack variant of the Hades-A, equipped with 26mm machine-gun, external hardpoints, and the additional facilites of pod-mounted laser-designator, enlarged ordinance carrying pylons and the option for electronic warfare.
Mil Mi-56 Hurricane
The biggest attack helicopter ever assembled, and a monster evolved relative of the Mi-26Z Halo.
The aircraft carries no rear rotor, which is replaced by two 6-blade counter-rotating rotors, and heavily flattened exhaust surfaces to reduce thermal signatures – a common problem with any large engine design.
The aircraft will carry 2 crew in a Hind-style one-behind-one cockpit with individual ejector-seats. The cockpit will -however – be accessible from the rear section via passageway.
There will also be a 4-man crew operating in the rear section of the helicopter in the gunnery / ordinance-technician role.
The Mi-56 Hurricane will carry a large quantity of hull armour and fuel as the majority of its flight load, but will able to carry large onboard stocks of ordinance.
The Mi-56 will have large, double-sided weapons pylons, equipped with motorised rails to fire, eject and reload ordinance in mid-flight, with the fresh ordinance coming from inside the helicopter.
The helicopters primary weapons will include a tilt-nose double-barrel 30mm machine gun, and will have a replenishable ordinance stock of rocket-pods, gun-pods, SA-22 air-air missiles and anti-tank rockets.
On fixed outer hard-points (not-replenished), the Mi-56 will also carry anti-radiation missiles and AA-11 Archer air-air missiles.
The rear end of the helicopter will accomodate a side-to-side swinging ball-turret equipped with a quadruple-barrelled 48-mm gun, with a 235-degree angle of fire.
The force of the gun firing will be countered by precise angling of high-pressure exhaust of cold air via pump turrets around the aircrafts hull.
The power-plant of the helicopter will be a complex of 5 turbines (4 uniform size to control normal flight / and one larger turbine to power the increased load of take-off and landing), located at the top of the helicopter, but internally to shield heat emission.
The fictional fuel of the helicopter is based on the assumption that a safe, inert gel fuel has been developed, that liquifies and reacts in the engine.
In the book, the aircraft will be able to survive two direct hits amidships by AGM-Hellfire anti-tank missiles, and still be able to land safely.