BALASHIKHA, Moscow Region. March 26 (Interfax-AVN) - The local Preodoleniye research and technical center has designed a helicopter system for crushing ice by blasts and destroying ice jams with the help of a fuselage charge handler, a spokesman for the center said on Tuesday.
The system was designed on order of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, the spokesman told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Two prototypes of the system installed in an MI-8 Hip helicopter have passed preliminary flight tests at the Sinyaya Ptitsa proving range near the central Russian city of Vladimir. Design of the multipurpose delay exploder and intermediate detonator was worked out during the tests as well.
Both prototypes of the system are in the 179th rescue center of the Emergencies Ministry in the town of Noginsk near Moscow. They will soon be delivered to the ministry's Siberian regional center for acceptance flight tests in the upper straits of the Yenisei River.