I’m not so sure about the extra maintenance of the Ka-50 either. So it has a coaxial gearbox. But it does without the shafts and gears needed to operate the tail rotor. Also, the essential dynamic stuff ment to keep the Ka-50 flying and controllable are located nicely in the middle of the airframe. Conventional helos have a pretty voulnerable appendix with a tailrotor on it to stay controllable, and we’ve all seen footage about the airworthiness of an out-of-control helo.
Also, there is no second cockpit (“Crewchief, i lost my pencil inside the cockpit somewhere. Can you please disassemble the cockpit and get it out? It shouldn’t dangerously get stuck somewhere”), a simpler gun mount and feed… The maintenance argument sounds a bit far-fetched to me.
Two more valid reasons i can think of for the eventual victory of the Mi-28:
– An MMS on a coaxial rotor does make things a bit too complex, i guess. You’d be having a triple shaft (triaxial rather than coaxial: clockwise, counterclockwise, and static), the bearings and lubrication for that would be a bit difficult IMHO.
– The second crash, with a very high-ranking Army Aviation officer getting killed during negative-G maneuvring. Indeed, you shouldn’t be pulling full-digit negative G’s with a coax helo. But do tell me, how many conventional helos can pull that off? Don’t think there is even one.
The maintainace argument is not far fetched, prices are important the Ka-50 is expensive to build and therefore spare parts are expensive, it coaxial rotor system also is more complex and the Ka-50 is an agile helicopter it requiers therefore great care
http://mi-helicopter.ru/rus/index.php?gcat=1&photo=96
This impacts when you field a Helicopter in combat, the russians already know the Mi-24 is becoming quit obsolete, it is not as agile as the Mi-28 or Ka-50, however the Ka-50 has some vulnerabilities and the most important is its type of rotor.
The Russians settled for something with low risk and relatively same features to the AH-64.
I guess those few Ka-50s will be operated as special weapons.
The Russians also are watching very carefully the real combat operations of their helicopters and the similar western tipes among the AH-64 in real combat operations.
There were some arguments to counter the Ka-50, but maintenance was never listed among them. The gearbox and rotor are auto-lubricating maintenance free systems, derived from Ka-29 which alone was designed to withstand even much harsher weather conditions than Ka-50.
The biggest drawbacks of Ka-50 were high RCS values, higher price tag and high crew workload, as well as necessity to modify the whole training system for helicopter pilots in case Ka-50s were fielded in large numbers.
let see what was what the Russian ministry of defence said about why they chose the Mi-28 over the Ka-50 Министерство обороны Российской Федерации собирается заморозить производство ударного вертолета Ка-50 “Черная акула”, сообщается на сайте газеты “Известия”. See that this was what the Russian ministry of defeces says
Ка-50 способен разворачиваться во время полета на 180 градусов, не меняя при этом направления движения.
Впрочем, как отмечают эксперты, соосная система несущих винтов обладает некоторыми недостатками, которые, возможно, являются причиной выбора Минобороны. Дело в том, что такая схема является крайне дорогостоящей в производстве из-за технологической сложности.
Кроме того, во время резкого маневрирования, а также в результате попадания пуль и снарядов в ротор несущих винтов может произойти их схлестывание. Из-за этого во время испытаний были разрушены два опытных экземпляра “Акулы”.
See that the main argument is the coaxial system which they claim is quit complex and expensive to build and the fact that extreme maneouvring can cause damage to the coaxial rotor system.
Sourcehttp://lenta.ru/russia/2004/10/28/shark/
These were the main reasons why they did not select the Ka-50, according to experts from the Rostov helicopter plant.
Now what does imply this complexity in construction and vulnerability to damage during high maneouvring means high priced spare parts for the coaxial system and therefore expensive mantainence 😉
See that the experts from Rostov helicopter plant are basicly Mil coorporation experts and they think that was the reason behind selecting the Mi-28 over the Ka-50
I don’t think the system itself is dangerous. First, Ka-50 is much easier to fly than atypical helicopter, second similar rotor system was used before on Ka-25 Hormone or Ka-27/29 Helix.
The way I see it the Ka-50 is pretty safe to fly under normal regime but being nimble and agile its pilots could be very tempted to squeeze it out as far as it gets. Something in the way *hooray, let’s see what this beast can do*. And then bang! the helo could reveal itself as slightly less tolerant to mistakes and errors than originally thought.
I guess the most difficult part of what i have read is maintainence, pilots fly their aircraft knowing the performance and capabilities of their aircraft but the main problem is money, the Ka-50 is difficult to mantain it is not a Ka-29, it is a high performance helicopter and that requieres great care of its coaxial rotors and blades specially when it is so agile, the Mi-28 gives them almost the same with less mantainence, it means the Mi-28 is simplier and the Russians like simplicity over complexity, this was the main reason why the Mi-28 was chosen, it offers almost the same with less risks in technical terms in the same way other aircraft have been chosen, the Mi-28 and Ka-50 are more less balance as gunships and are armed with almost the same weapons.
In few words the Mi-28 is the less risky of both helicopters and the cheaper and easier to operate that is critical in time of war reliability and mantainability is the prime concern in a prolonged conflict.
As an anti aircraft helicopter both have advantages, the Ka-50 is a single seat more agile machine that can point its missiles independently of the flight path as the Su-35 can do with the Cobra turn, the Mi-28 can do that only with its fixed weapon but it is a two seats aircraft and as the saying goes two heads are better than one
Hereby providing all numbers of Ka-50s I have been able to track so far..
010 – dark blue painted prototype V.80-01
011 – grey painted prototype V.80-02
012 – metal-colored prototype V.80-03
014 – yellow/green painted prototype V.80-04 – later converted to Ka-50N with two FLIRs in the nose
015 – glossy black painted V.80-05 (starring in the Russian action movie Charnaya Akula) – later repainted to two-tone green plus blue underside
018 – two-tone green, later given desert camo, later converted to Ka-50Sh standard with black nose, subsequently repainted back to two-tone green, Sam**** BM-1 FLIR ball
020 – black painted company demonstrator, nicknamed Werewolf, coded H318
021 – black painted company demonstrator, nicknamed Black Shark, coded H317
024 – black painted company demonstrator, nicknamed Black Shark, coded H34720 – series Ka-50, two-tone green plus blue underside
21 – series Ka-50, two-tone green plus blue underside
22 – series Ka-50, black painted with white underside, huge red sharkmouth
24 – series Ka-50, two-tone green plus blue underside, seen at Grozny 2001, Syzran Troekurovka, MAKS 2001
25 – series Ka-50, two-tone green plus blue underside, seen at Grozny 2001, Rubezh 2004, Borki 2006, MAKS 2005
26 – series Ka-50, matt-black overall, seen at Torzhok 2005Some of the 020/021/024 company demonstrators might have been transferred to Torzhok in full operational status as series examples. At least two Ka-50s were lost in crashes, one being the sharkmouthed 22, second one is unknown to me.
Thanks i did not know there were so many
I feel NATO should call the Mi-28 rat see the similarities
Nice pics of the black shark in this link! I wonder if an AA version of that helicopter would be usefull on the battlefield.
Nic
Tha Ka-50 has been employed along side the Mi-24 over Chechya, however some of the conclusions they got is basicly the ka-50 is a quit complex machine, it has better agility than the Mi-28 to say the least, but it is far more complex and quit expensive, further more the coaxial blades arrangement despite it allows the Ka-50 to spin up to 180 degrees and keep its forward flight path, has the unconvinience of more vulnerability and has cause crashes in the past.
When it was operated in Chechya the Ka-29 served as target designators for the Ka-50
In terms of agility the Mi-24 could not keep up with the Ka-50, Chechnya proved the worth of the ka-50 as a weapons system
MLD,
Thanks…but i already saw that report when u posted it in the previous thread.
And…what helos are those at the bottom of ur first post(i mean those 3 pix in a row,just above the Mi24 front profile)?
That is a kazan product it is called AHR it was showed at MAKS
tyhis link is in english and has pictures and description of the ANSAT
http://www.www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Maks2005/Helicopters/index.html
Mig23MLD……what are those pix of at the bottom of your first post?
Do you have any pix of the Super-Hind upgrade of SA?Thanx.
I found this yesterday to tell you the truth i did not know about it until i found this webpage yesterday
Here is the link, it has a different forward fuselage a kind of Mi-24A, it is said to be more agile and have better electronics source:
http://armstass.su/?page=article&aid=30538&cid=24
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