Heh, maybe they do spray water on the helipad on take off.

Thanks for the information Ja.. appreciate it..

‘press’ can you provide some details about the flying characteristics of the Mi-8 and the Mi-17.. IAF has these in good numbers.. besides IAF is also looking for replacement of it’s ageing Aloutte fleet.. the competitors are the Fennec and Bell 407…

Well first of all, this helicopter is built for work and not pleasure cruise..although it does that very good. 😀
The Mi-8 is built specifically for the Siberian “heat”. We all know how hot it is there. The colder it is outside the better the Mi-8 flies. It is very stable, in hover I can let go of the collective light up my cigarette with no worry 😀
The minus for this helicopter is that if it is above 30 degrees C outside it doesn`t really wanna take off. We usually spray water on the helipad and then…up we go.
The Mi-17 is for hotter regions. It has better engines(TV3-117A, MT, VM..many variants), an APU (AI-9V) better avionics, better autopilot…and of course…green cockpit panels 😀
The Mi-17 is a little bit harder to learn in comparison with the Mi-8. The Mi-17 has more special cases(in case sh!t happens situations) and also the electrical system is…well…fuzzy. And also maintenance is a little bit different…you have to stay in some awkword positions. The Mi-17 it is very powerfull, more manuvrable than the Mi-8.
The fuselage is hard rock! I have seen the vertical tail(the one on wich the tail rotor stays and spins) vibrate so hard I thought it`ll brake…but it didn`t. The amplitude was like 30-40 cm on each side. Ice all over the helicopter and it was still stubornly(it wasn`t like we wanted to crash or something) stayed in the air.
I don`t know how the MD variant is…the one with the duck nose*this is how we call it*. I heard that two of these helicopters will arrive here for the Police. I hope I`ll get a chance and take it for a spin.
I honestly believe that anyone who invests money in a fleet of Mi-17s…he won`t invest them in vain.

The Alouette is a really nice helicopter, very rugged.The Police unit here has two of them…and the Army has a few.

Also Mil Design Bureau in cooperation with Kazan Helicopter Plant and Eurocrapopter are building the Mi-38. The prototype first flew almost two years ago. Let`s see how good it`ll be…only time will tell. Although I wouldn`t mind some stick time on it 😀

Mi-26 is an impressive helicopter. I`ve never seen it. The biggest helicopter I`ve ever seen is the mighty Mi-10K. Two passed some years ago over my former city of residence. It`s impressive! Mi-26 although it is huge, when it`s empty it doesn`t want to land. The pilots have to stay and wait for the monster to sit down. I`ve heard that it has problems with cracks in the tail boom because it is not rounded. I think they`re working on the problem. Other than that..I would love to take it for a spin.

EC-135 is the greatest crap of them all. It`s way expensive. With the money for one EC-135 I can buy almost 2 Mi-17s with glass cockpit, meteo radar, and other goodies and really do some work. The 135 looks good on paper…but it`s a dissapointment in reality. The FADEC is a good idea..but needs a lot of improving. Sometimes it injects more fuel in the combustion chambers and we get the afterburner effect, or during flight the screens go off, it`s weather sensitive and it`s LASY. It can barely take off fully loaded and then it`s range is like from my house to the market and back(the market is very close to where I live). I have some good words for it tho`. It is perfect for city ambulance or fast swat insertion…small…quiet.

I know most of the people here think that Russian helicopters/planes are ugly…but the S-92 gives a new definition to uglyness. Although beauty is not that important..if it`ll do its job…than it`s a good helicopter no matter how boxy its shape is.

One helicopter I`m putting faith on is the CH-149 Cormorant..I think Merlin is its name here on the continent. I don`t know much about it, I like the 3 engine design. I heard it`s plagued by the cracks that appear in the tail, I hope this`ll be solved. Anyone know some more info about it? I`m not interested in the empty figures in the flight data sheet that I can find all over the internet…I`m interested about how it performs in real life.