MOSCOW, March 14 (AVN) - Russian Air Force experts have completed analysis of the KA-50 Hokum helicopter's combat tests in Chechnya, a spokesman for the Armed Forces army aviation chief said on Wednesday.
Experts marked high efficiency of the helicopter's strikes confirmed by video filming from on board the aircraft, reports of complex firing groups and search and attack parties, the spokesman told the Military News Agency. The helicopters are also distinguished for high power-to-weight ratio.
At the same time, KA-50 is still poorly adapted for operations at night as it can only it targets marked by lights. The army aviation command is doing its best to make KA-50 operational at night as soon as possible.
Experts believe that experience in combat application of manoeuvre coaxial-rotor helicopters will contribute to development for more powerful aircraft operational 24 hours a day and in any weather.
KA-50 (Russian designation Black Shark) is the world's only coaxial combat helicopter. Its design ensures easy control over its systems in both manual and automatic modes, high manoeuvrability and advanced survivability in combat thanks to absence of the tail rotor with control systems and gear box, which makes other helicopters an easy target.
Black Sharks are capable of making turns with the roll of up to 65 percent, as well as zooms and dives with the pitch of up to 60 degrees. The aircraft's climb rate is over 15m/s and it enables them to perform the most complicated aerobatics stunts in the entire range of heights and speeds with overload of over 3g.
Pilots of the army aviation combat application centre that tested KA-50 in Chechnya say the helicopter can make quick U-turns at the speed of up to 220km/h. This enables the aircraft to meet the chasing enemy with a head-on burst in the course of an air clash. No other helicopter in the world can make such a manoeuvre. Thanks it this capacity, KA-50 was assigned the codename Hokum in the West.
The Hokum crew comprises one pilot. The helicopter's power plant includes two TVZ-117VMA gas-turbine engines that are mounted at the sides in the upper part of the fuselage and have the capacity of 2,200hp each. The maximum take-off weight is 10.8t, maximum speed 310km/h, altitude range up to 5,000m and flight range with full inner tanks 455km. The aircraft is 14.2m long, 4.093m high and the diameter of its rotor is 14.5m.
Hokum is armed with a 30mm cannon with the ammunition allowance of 460 cartridges, two 23mm suspended cannon containers, 12 supersonic anti-tank missiles with unified homing warheads for hitting armoured, ground and aerial targets, four launchers with 20 B8V20A rockets of 80mm calibre each, air bombs and gasoline tanks.