ROSTOV-ON-DON, March 13 (AVN) - The local Rosvertol JS is currently refitting a MI-24 Hind fire support helicopter into MI-24VM, Yuri Zaikin, the plant's deputy director, told the Military News Agency.
According to him, this will improve modernisation technologies and reduce the time of future refit of the operational helicopters. Due to the situation in the North Caucasus, the Defence Ministry is likely to increase the order for modernisation several times.
The Rosvertol JS proposes the Defence Ministry to combine modernisation with capital repairs of the helicopters which will allow increasing their resource by 1,000 hours and extending their life service for 7 years. According to experts, the cost of modernisation equals 15-20 per cent of the cost of a new helicopter.