Tandem & Tilt-Rotor Aircraft development

if NK & Iran can import/smuggle parts, so can India.

Iran and NK are already on Americas shit list so they don't care about following US rules of parts and support.

India has contracts and a range of deals with the US... if they start buying bogus parts then the US will go bat shit crazy and demand compensation and they wont sign any new contracts or deals if they continue... not to mention impose sanctions and the like.

I calculated with respect to what they r already committed to spend on them. I'm not like an accountant that can answer his boss "how much is 2+2? with "whatever u want it to be!" to get hired.
They'll have the right mix of them, & won't need as many as 40 CH-47Fs or 360 Mi-17s.

No, you manipulated the numbers to suit your case... and you failed because the costs you talked about included life time costs basically... according to wiki a Chinook only costs 40 million to buy, but they paid over 200 million per aircraft suggesting this is probably a 10 years spares and support contract covering everything. They clearly had never had the aircraft in operation at all before so it actually likely includes a lot of infrastructure and changed bases and equipment to suit the new types... which would also be a factor for Russia if it wanted to introduce a brand new type that is a Tandem rotor design... eye wateringly expensive... but I will hand it to you... you have serious balls trying to tell me a Chinook is better value for money at 3 billion dollars for 14 of them after you mention the Mi-17s cost about 650 million for 80 of them... balls or delusion...

Comparing their specs, it is pretty close to be 2x as capable:

No, it isn't. Very few helicopters operate at max distance and max speed at max weights, so if you have a helo that can carry twice the payload of another helo... it might never carry more payload than that other helo in actual use because they might never need to move that sort of payload around.

Operating in mountains you don't generally often need to move 10 ton payloads around the place... it is just not normally needed.... just the same why would you ever need to move 70 people around in the mountains... WTF would they be doing there?

You are just being silly.

So, if 14 of them r=28 of Mi-17s they won't need to field, they r also saving on 14x3=42 extra crew+maint. personnel.

When operating in mountains having extra crew is a good thing, and having extra helo crew to help with maintainence is a good thing too... do you really think an extra person on board to help fix something or repair something is a bad thing?

The 4 Mi-26s they'll replace (which could be sold to break even or at a profit) r another (5-3)x4=8 extra crew+maint. personnel.

You are not making sense... those Mi-26s probably cost less than 30 million, so selling 20 ton capacity helicopters to offset the costs of 10 ton capacity helicopters that cost over 200 million is just bloody stupid... the most sensible choice would be to dump the 200 million dollar overpriced pieces of crap and just buy another 30 Mi-17s for maybe 250 million... just over the price of one Chinook, and to keep using the Mi-26s elsewhere.

When those Chinooks crash you might want a few Mi-26s on hand to recover them anyway.

That's 42+8=50 total extra flight crew, or 50/3=16.6 crews for the 14 CH-47Fs. The Indians r very good at their math!

Oh come on dude.... they are not spending 3 billion dollars to save 5,000 rupees a week in wages for goodness sake... they say they are saving money because they can't say they want to buy some good will from the US like Saudi Arabia does with its arms purchases... except I don't think the Indians want to kill and dismember a reporter in one of their embassies... they just want a bit of good will in their relationship with Pakistan and US support in their relationship with China.

Saving money has nothing at all to do with this.

not bogus, but genuine from other users &/ locally made parts.

Of course, American manufacturers wont mind India saving money on cheap local parts that American companies are not getting a cut from... that is how the US MIC made its money...

right, even with those lifetime costs, 14 of them r the game changer.

How are they a game changer?

They cost several times more than the most expensive Russian alternative that has twice the payload capacity and are dozens of times more expensive than the Russian equivalent Mi-6.

Aside from specs, they r not so special vs. Mi-17/38s, no need for a lot more infrastructure and changed bases and equipment to suit them.

Well in that case they are getting robbed if the 200 million cost per helicopter just includes the helicopter and its maintenance...

but at times they may have to, + take more fuel for more range/time in the air. In mil. flight ops, "normally" doesn't happen often!

It either happens all the time... in which case an Mi-26 would be a much better option because they can do anything the Chinook can do and when needed even more, or it only happens occasionally, in which case some Mi-17s most of the time and occasionally when needed Mi-26.

I meant to recover the $ they paid for & used them. Unit cost US$20–25 million (Mi-26TS, 2011)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26

If you sell them you are not going to get anywhere near the price you paid for them. It makes rather more sense to keep them and use them in other places... because the alternative is selling them and then finding you have to buy more ridiculously expensive western helicopters to do the job... most of the time that would mean the job wont get done.

They may crash the Mi-26s during recoveries as well; easier, safer & cheaper to salvage usable parts & buy new replacements.

An Mi-26 can recover Mi-26s and Chinooks... Chinooks can't even recover themselves let alone Mi-26s...

FYI, they r already buying 10 more P-8s for an estimated $3 billion,..

That is different because there is currently no in production replacement for the Il-38 May in Russia, so the P-8 had no competition. The Chinook on the other hand has several Russian alternatives that are much much cheaper and superior in several ways.

The CH-47Fs order wouldn't have made much of difference; they probably plan to master operating & maintaining them to see if it would be feasible/possible to develop their own tandem-rotor helos.
At least it's a lot cheaper/easier than buying more or copying/using the Mi-26 size helos.

Is this a joke?

Spending 3 billion dollars to buy 14 helicopters because they might decide to develop their own... presumably for 5-10 billion dollars of their own money, is not cheaper or easier than buying Mi-26 helicopters when those helos are one tenth of the price of these Chinooks.

Do you not understand basic math?

You can buy about 10 Mi-26 helos for the price of one Chinook, which means 140 Mi-26s for the price of 14 Chinooks... for the money they have already spent on 14 Chinooks they could have all the Mi-26s they need for the next 20 years without developing anything of their own...

Even if 1 Mi-26 2x less expensive vs. 1 CH-47F, it doesn't mean India can operate 2x more of of them w/o losing $.

Purchase price is closer to 10 times less expensive to buy... if they only buy one then you have the cost of another 9 aircraft... the Mi-26 could have total destruction crashes 8 times and India has to buy a new one on their own money and it would still be cheaper than one Chinook that cannot be allowed to crash...

From that viewpoint, they'll be saving a lot.

No they wont.

Their own 10-15T helo isn't ready yet & may not be fully ready even in 5-10 years. Incidentally, the same is true for Russia & China.

Who cares.... WTF is so damn magic about a 10-15 ton payload helicopter? If it was so damn valuable then why did the Soviets replace their 12 ton capacity Mi-6 with their 20 ton capacity Mi-26?

If 10-15 ton capacity helos were so damn wonderful and efficient then why was it not replaced with another helicopter in the same weight class?

You remind me of western experts regarding small arms... the 9x18mm round the soviets used is weak and useless, yet it makes the same sized hole as the 9x19mm NATO round that is so freaken wonderful because it has a slightly heavier bullet moving slightly faster. The strange thing is that when it comes to rifle and machine gun ammo or heavy machine gun ammo the Soviet rounds like the 7.62x54mmR and 12.7x108mm are close enough to being the same as the NATO equivalent 7.62x51mm and 12.7x99mm despite their smaller case capacities and lighter projectile weights.

It will have higher speed & longer range, but I suspect that other specs won't differ much from the Ka-29:

Well it cant be bigger or much heavier because it needs to fit in the same sized hangars on ships and on land... and the Helix hangars on ships are tiny and fit around the helos like a glove.

Except for speed, the CH-47F is ~2x more capable:

No it isn't.. the CH-47F would be a useless piece of shit to replace the Ka-27 because it couldn't land on their landing pads let alone fit in their hangars... and what the fuck are they going to be doing with a 10 ton payload capacity for a ship based helicopter for?

There is no room on corvettes and frigates and destroyers for 70 troops... but then as they wont be able to land or take off it wont really matter what that payload is.

You might as well tell me about how the Sea Stallion is x amount more capable than the Ka-27 because it wouldn't get the job either...

But don't think this is me being anti American... an Mi-26 would be useless as a replacement for the Ka-27 too for the very same reasons.

This unit could also use similar tandem-rotor helos, besides tilt-rotors:

Why?

Look at the chart... they have Mi-35s which can carry small groups of troops and decent fire power... they are talking about a new model with more troops and better armour... so that will probably replace the Mi-35s, though if they get the troop numbers high enough and armour light and strong enough it might replace the Mi-8/17 too, but the Mi-26 is there for the big payloads and large troop movements and no new tandem rotor design would improve on its performance...

The is no gap for a tilt rotor or twin main rotor design to fit in to.

As I was saying: ..a significant part of the forest fund is technologically inaccessible: "The country is large, the northern territories are developed by people very low." Indeed, the density of the airfield network in these regions is extremely low - literally one airfield per thousand kilometers. And the plane, which is engaged in extinguishing, needs not only to fly in and dump water on the fire, but also to go back.

Let it burn... forest fires are a natural thing and occasionally burning down is good for the soil and regrowth in old forests.

Where people are at risk then it would be worth fighting the fires but most of the time they really don't matter.

There is a reason there are so few air fields... because there are no real important reasons to have a lot of airfields there.

If you really want to open out the territory you need rail and roads, but there just isn't enough people in the region to justify that cost yet, which I agree is a catch 22 situation... no people therefore no roads, and no roads means no people, but if there are resources there worth extracting then people are going to go and they are going to build airfields and roads... there are currently plans to expand rail connections to the northern ports and the rail lines from Asia to europe... that will improve access and make it cheaper and easier... but building thousands of new airfields in case of an occasional forest fire is just pissing money away... building tilt rotor and tandem rotor helicopters would also be a waste because both would lack the range to operate in places where airfields are thousands of kms apart with anything like a useful payload. An aircraft like an Il-476 or Be-200 would make much more sense with their higher speeds and in the laters case the ability to scoop up water from lakes and rivers nearby.

Long range tandem/tilt-rotors can enable firefighting & other disaster relief ops in remote areas to save lives & property.
In crises & wartime, they r force multipliers.

When has this ever been used?

Tandem rotor helos are Chinooks and they are inferior to Mi-26s in payload capacity. A Be-200 is 1000x better than a Chinook in such a situation... much better flight range and much better flight speed and can operate from nearby water surfaces like lakes and rivers and can deliver more water to target much faster than tandem rotor helos and tilt rotor aircraft in Russia that don't currently exist.

When India are saying Chinooks are saving money, it is because Indian audiences like to save money... who doesn't...

They are relying on their audience not looking at the figures they are releasing and working it out for themselves however... because anyone who can count can work out that US products are insanely expensive and you only buy them when either you want to curry favour with the US, or you get a percentage cut of the total cost of the deal, which they likely do... 5% of 3 billion dollars for 14 helos vs 5% of 600 million dollars for 80 odd helicopters... it is not hard to work out which payday is going to be best for the person in Indian government signing the deal... but they couldn't tell the taxpayers that it was not a better deal for their military forces...

they won't be able to do much about it...

They can do plenty about it.

If I sell you a computer and you decide to buy cheaper parts and printer ink from someone else, then you go off my best customer list to my shit list.

You will pay full retail for the next computer you buy from me and if you want an expensive one I will also tie you in to a servicing agreement that says you can't use parts from any other supplier except me...

Haven't you ever seen a disclaimer on a printer saying if you use non standard ink cartridges then you invalidate the warranty and any repairs or other costs become your responsibility that you will have to pay for?

The extra price of parts normally is where they make their money... in fact for a while there it was cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy a full set of ink cartridges for it... they got wise to that and started putting tiny ink cartridges in the printers they sell so it wasn't worth it to do that any more.

US MIC isn't stupid.

those r slower, bigger targets & less stable in cross winds.

Chinooks are huge, they are definitely not smaller and their two sets of main rotors means they need an enormous space to land safely and they are likely 20 times the price of an Mi-6 which has the same capacity.

perhaps they get other bonuses from the US we don't know about- that's how influence is bought in the most corrupt nation on Earth! They r hedging their bets & play RF & US against each other. China & Pakistan r always in the back of their minds- those nations' relations with both can be, from at India's perspective, at her expense.

Which is what I have been saying all along, and totally undermines your suggestion that Russia needs tandem rotor helos, because building them wont gain them better relations with the US.

India needs to be careful because they might end up winning the US as their primary source of weapons... they will get Saudi like invincibility from international issues, but they need to be aware that any rebel group will clean them up on the battlefield while they are waiting for the ice cream to be delivered.

they could buy some new Japanese MPA, or modify/buy AN-32MPs & AN-74MPs:

WTF are you talking about?

India couldn't even make an Il-38 equivalent let alone something worthy of replacing it... there is a reason they are buying off the shelf... MPA are expensive and complicated and the only way to make them even more expensive and actually less effective is to make one yourself.

how long will it take before the 10th is delivered? The CH-47Fs can be produced faster.

So the dog turd is not shiny, but the dog delivers and has an infinite supply... did you use to work in marketing?

Pay them 220 million per aircraft and they will make them as quickly as you want.

there r & will be more bigger ships in the VMF & the Indian Navy for them to operate from

And those new and bigger RUSSIAN ships will be designed for Kamov designs, not american ones.

Only 15 Be-200s been built so far, with 24 more ordered:

Your suggestion is to develop from scratch and build tandem rotor helos and tilt rotor aircraft... for a fraction of that cost it would be much more valuable for Russia to order 50 Be-200s.... it will be cheaper and much faster to get into service, and on the ground much much more useful than some slow useless helos that are no better than the helos they already have.

If that was enough, they wouldn't be calling 10 VTA's IL-76s & 10 VKS's Mi-8s for help, in addition to MChS aircraft!

That is just them making do with what they have right now. The best solution therefore is to buy more of the aircraft that would be the most use in this situation, which is the Be-200s and in the mean time use what you have that makes sense.

Developing tandem rotor aircraft inferior to existing types makes as little sense as gambling on tilt rotor aircraft that likely will be lower performing than the new high speed helicopters they are already working on.

For fighting fires they don't need to land vertically... scooping water is much much faster than landing and pumping water into tanks... and these jets are much faster than any tandem rotor helicopter ever designed or even speculated to exist.

Not all areas have suitable bodies of water close enough for that. Some may be frozen/shallow even in May & June & again in September/October. Even in S. Siberia, the Lake Baikal, the deepest, is frozen till Ma

Then tough shit... let it burn.

Shallower lakes may stay frozen even longer. Big rivers r few & far between there. It's not like in Canada with 100s of lakes. With changing climate, forest fires can happen in the Spring & Fall
Recently snow fell in Yakutia, & it's not the 1st time in August:

Tandem rotor helos are not even nearly a good solution, and nor are tilt rotors.

Tilt rotor aircraft are an attempt to combine the advantages of helicopters with the speed and range of fixed wing aircraft... they succeed in being better for some things than helos, what they don't succeed at is being better than fixed wing aircraft and the ability to land vertically is useless in the wide open spaces of Siberia.

If you haven't built a runway there then there are probably not enough people or resources there to justify building one, which means there is no reason to put fires there out.

All the green house gases being released will be good for global warming anyway.

Snow puts out fire too...

There is every reason to make more Be-200 fire bombers and zero reason to make brand new types of aircraft that wont be much use anywhere else and will cost a lot of money to develop and produce and yet wont have any advantage over using that money to build more airfields in their backwater regions.

They can risk it- with huge trade surplus, India can diversify their imports in a heartbeat. Iran still operates US made F-4s/5s/14s, P-3s & CH-47s despite the embargo. India could do the same.

India didn't buy Chinooks because they were cheap. Companies who make weapons make most of their profit from service and support contracts... do you really think US companies will not care that India is not buying their spare parts and are servicing those American aircraft themselves?

Grow up.

the Mi-6 is out of production & the Mi-38 has 2x less payload.

Why would they not replace the Mi-6 with another helo with a 12 ton capacity, and why has the brand new Mi-38 only got half the capacity... could it possibly be because they don't need a helicopter with a 12 ton payload capacity right now?

1 more thing: a single main rotor will struggle with updrafts from fires/mountains more & with less success than 2 main rotors.

Two sets of main rotors set side by side create an enormous footprint and make landing in small clearings impossible.

It also means the area needed to operate from ships or small landing areas is simply not there most of the time...

It also means operating in steep mountainous country is much more difficult too.

Spending $Ms on cheaper helos that underperform & crash is more waste than fielding more expensive helos that can outperform them with greater margin of safety & won't need to be totaled/recovered as often.

Spending ten times more money on a tandem helicopter that is less safe than a conventional helicopter is stupid and so saving money is a lie of an excuse.

Buying favour from the last super power makes sense and explains why they are so expensive, but don't try and push those bullshit reasons here about it being more efficient or safer or other crap.

A more expensive helicopter of LOWER performance that is just as likely to crash if not more so is not a good idea... the Mi-26 is less than 10% the price of a Chinook and has much better performance in the areas that matter.

they may build them for their own benefit, just like those Western-looking Il-86/96s, Tu-204s, SSJ-100 & MC-21s.

There is no benefit otherwise they would have kept using the ones they made.

Funny you think those planes look western looking... with angled armour is the Abrams a Soviet looking tank?

they just started cracking down in Kashmir, similar to what PRC done in Tibet & Sinkiang. India will not put all her eggs in 1 basket- she'll buy more arms from multiple sources- just like the Saudis, UAE, Indonesians, Malaysians, & L. Americans.

As usual you totally miss the point I was making...

they now operate AN-32s &/ could buy 2nd hand AN-72s to convert some to MP variants- it's not as hard as making a new plane from scratch.

They also operate brothels, does that mean they can just change the number of walls and their angles and create their own version of the white house or pentagon?

It is the contents of MPAs that make them useful or not... just having an An-32 or an An-72 aircraft means nothing if you want an MPA... and to be honest the An-32 would be the absolute dumbest platform to base an MPA on... you do know that MPAs generally don't operate from hot or high altitude airfields and spend most of their time operating over sea water... which most of the time is at sea level.

When you take an An-26 and double its engine power so it can operate at normal weights at high and hot airfields you make it much less efficient or capable as a normal transport at normal operating altitudes... that is why the Russians don't use them... they are a specialist design for hot and high operations... using them for normal flights at sea level would be stupid.

You might as well adapt a U-2 spy plane for MPA roles.

that's the point! Time is $! For example, a CVN is over 2x more expensive than a CV, but if a country can afford it, she'll get more bang for the buck. The Indians chose P-8s over other MPA not only to get in bed with the Americans- they know they r brand new & will last a long time, with parts & pilots readily available.

Then that is a stupid point... An Mi-26 is cheaper than a Chinook but is also more capable... what you are suggesting is the equivalent of having the option of being able to buy a Ford class CVN that is fully operational and working per specification for 4 billion dollars or being able to buy a QEII class ship CV for 15 billion dollars and saying the British CV is the better deal... and it clearly isn't.

the Ka-102 isn't American design, just like the Tu-144 & the An-70 r not French designs.

Ka-102 doesn't exist and wont exist... it is a pipe dream... and the Russian Navy would never put it into service... they don't have any need for it... it would be totally pointless.

If they needed heavy lift helos they would be trying to use Mi-38s on deck, and there would be a competition for a new heavy lift helo for the navy and THERE ISN'T.

The only new helo they want is an upgrade for the Helix family that needs to be able to operate from platforms the Helix currently operates from... which means a tandem rotor design is not possible.

that's a matter of opinion- they may &, I'm sure, will develop better tandem helos; whether or not they r ordered soon- time will tell!

They may give up making helicopters at all and just go with their passion for surfing...

Wouldn't bet money on it though.

there must be competing designs, just like with IL-276 vs. Tu-330.

Why?

Tandem rotor design helicopters have all of their own unique problems and issues... why would any company take on the risks and problems of developing a whole new technology on the off chance that they might do something right and make it better than current or planned aircraft are already doing right?

a helo can hover & break ice with its bucket- a plane will need to use bombs or bombers' help; on small lake/river even that will be useless with any fixed wing, lest it crash there.

Buckets used by helicopters for carrying water are lightweight things that wouldn't break glass let alone ice.... an An-2 could be converted to amphibious design and land on rivers or lakes frozen solid... they could blow a hole in the ice with a shaped charge and pump water on board and still be faster than any helo and much much cheaper to operate too.

they better not wait till Moscow & other big cities' airports get closed to low visibility & people start dying due to smoke.

There is probably 2,000km between these fires and Moscow... if the fires were close to large cities and their airports the WTF are you talking about needing vertical take off aircraft to get to them for FFS?

the Taiga forest is dense for 100s of miles between any big enough openings, with mostly uneven ground at that.

So with it burning there should be a lot of new places for them to land....

smoke can be carried 1000s of miles to populated areas, causing great economic damage.

Economic opportunity... people in Japan and SK have been wearing face masks for years in big cities when the smog is bad... Chinese factories should be able to crank out millions of them very quickly.

I posted it to show that cold weather & snow can return early & freeze lakes & cover airstips. A tandem-rotor helo &/ a tilt-rotor can quickly clean a landing pad with their downwash while landing.

Yeah, those stupid Russians... when it snows they just stop operating aircraft... they really don't know what to do with snow when it hits the ground and doesn't go away... that is why they are such a weak country because they don't do anything for 8 months of the year when it is too cold to do anything... if only they had some smart american to tell them what they need to fix their problems.

I mean building tandem rotor helicopters or tilt rotor aircraft is brilliant... I mean no other Russian aircraft could possibly generate a downwash as powerful as those super aircraft.... the Chinook and the V-22... I mean in comparison the Mi-26 is just a humming bird flitting around...

the CH-46/47s been used & sold alongside the CH-53s for decades now- if they were useless, the US Congressional watch dogs would have raised hell & fine/put many people in prison for corruption a long time ago. Perhaps the V-22 style tilt-rotors r not needed in Russia, but as that link I posted twice showed, a special mission variant of the Mi-12-type helo could be developed.

[sarcasm]Yeah, of course... US Congress prevents any corruption or white elephants from ever getting to operational service in the US... no corruption or misappropriation of funds there at all... its perfect their system of government.... which is why it has been so widely copied around the world... respect and admiration...[/sarcasm]

A tiltrotor, like a hybrid of an airplane and a helicopter, cannot boast of outstanding characteristics in both flight modes. Meanwhile, it has huge advantages - the possibility of vertical take-off and landing, high (compared to a helicopter) speed of movement - up to 500 km/h, long range. This makes it possible to deliver people and goods to the most inaccessible places that are not equipped with runways - to places of development of minerals, remote settlements, etc. Naturally, the tiltrotor can be successfully used by the army as well - for the delivery of troops, weapons, cargo to the places of military operations.

I know what a tilt rotor is... it is a compromise between an aeroplane and a helicopter. Compared with an aeroplane it has low speed, poor payload, and poor range, but it can take off and land vertically. Compared with a helo it has high speed, the payload is not that impressive to be honest... the V-22 only carries 9 tons or so, and the range is not that amazing either.

Basically, you buy a Tilt rotor if you don't have a big enough helicopter... and Russia has the biggest helicopter... the new high speed helicopters they are looking at will probably eliminate the main reason to go for a tilt rotor design... and that is speed.

For a tandem rotor there needs to be a very complex transmission to ensure that both rotors will keep rotating even if one engine is lost.... equally as the main rotors are rotating in opposite directions there is constant tension on the aircraft structure as it is continuously trying to twist...

Even India & China that could afford refurbishing it rn't interested!

They both already have Mi-26s in service, why would they buy something that is no supported and has no spares contract?

Lots of countries bought MiG-29s at the end of the cold war because they were cheap, but the people selling them just wanted to get rid of some aircraft, they wanted to keep some aircraft and therefore kept their spare parts to use on their own aircraft.

The customers therefore needed spares and support training to be able to use their new aircraft, so they went to MiG... who had been trying to sell new MiGs but these countries bought the cheaper ones from air forces across the former warsaw pact and former soviet union... and those customers were shocked at having to pay full price for spares.

If a customer didn't buy the product from you then you make money selling the spares and support contracts so you can't afford to be generous and give them discounts.

After getting cheap MiGs those countries were stung by the price of spares, but only because they were cheap in the first place... if they bought MiGs from the company that made them they could have had a much better deal on spares and support... most of the smart countries ended up buying a batch of aircraft so they could get their spares and support contracts a bit cheaper...

If the US hurts them bad enough, they'll care less what others think or might do. Do u know how much they would pay for service & parts if those 4 Mi-26s r kept, + more r procured instead of CH-47Fs?

If they were paying 200 million dollars plus for each Mi-26 then I would worry how much they cost to operate more than if they cost 20 million and can carry twice the payload...

don't worry, they can carry bombs to make an LZ.

So what is the problem... make the LZ two kilometres long and land Il-476s.

if only 1 set of wheels can touch the ground, mission accomplished!

Can you drive a 10 ton MRAP onto a Chinook with only one set of toes touching the ground?

BTW the Mi-26 could do that too you know...

(the two wheels on the ground BTW, not taking on serious weights balancing on its toes... Mi-8 deliveries in Afghanistan often occurred from a hover a metre above the ground to hill top bases...)

if it can perform well/better in the high mountains, it's as safe or safer.

Who says... the Hip family already operates rather well in mountains... you will notice Mi-8s and Mi-17s in Afghanistan and Tibet and India in most places they operate helicopters... not so many Chinooks, but then for that price I can understand only very rich countries could afford them.

not only: no1 else has this type of helo. If the Ka-102 was flying now, I bet the CH-47Fs wouldn't have a chance in India.

You talk about it like the chinook is the only helicopter that can operate in mountains... Hips are fine there too.

MPA r used often overland too, & even on the Indian coast it gets very hot most of the time. They could get a few 2nd hand An-26s as well.

You are not getting it... they could base it on a tiger moth for all it matters... the important thing is the contents of an MPA and they are no where close to being able to put that together by themselves... that is why they buy off the shelf.

true, but having more smaller & faster helos presents more difficult targets; it allows more flexibility & tactics to be employed.

Mi-17 is much smaller, and faster means nothing when you are the size of a school bus... and flexibility... the only armed Chinooks have door gunners only... pathetic.

The USN doesn't have CH-47s, but the Army does & sometimes lands on their ships; the Ka-102 has a chance of being built & used if not by the VMF, by other services/entities that may operate with the VMF/Marines.

There is little to no chance of a real Ka-102 being built... there is simply no need for such an aircraft.

a silly joke to make!

You talk about things that are very unlikely, but you make it sound like they are a dead cert to happen... your wishes don't make it true.

The reality is that a Chinook type helo doesn't offer anything that already planned designs cannot already do, so it really is not in any Russian helicopter makers interests to piss away money on a concept that has no real future... a good way to kill a company is to get it to invest enormous amounts of money and time and resources on something that at best might be bought in very very small numbers anyway.

They would be better off buying more Be-200s that could be used around the world when needed... a fleet of 50 would be very useful because even when not used for fire fighting they could land on the many siberian rivers and lakes during summer and fitted with skis could operate on rivers and lakes during winter too.

it makes sense if they r set & determined to overcome those problems and issues, like they did with the coaxials & the giant Mi-12/26s.

The effort and time and money wasted in making something that might be slightly better than what they currently have, but by the time it is ready will be inferior to upgraded current models with pusher propellers makes no sense at all.

grow up: helos don't need runways to take off & land on, & the visibility to do it safely.

If the fires are close to cities and airports then fixed wing water bombers can operate from there... they don't need to waste time on slow low capacity helicopters...

& get burned themselves on that hot ground, or getting their engines damaged from the ashes & debris!

What are you talking about? After a fire burns through an area of forest there are embers and sparks but the ground doesn't stay hot for days or weeks... maybe a few hours at best... this is siberia remember... the ground is frozen about 2km deep and during summer only the top two or three metres defrost... that is like saying if you turn your oven up to 300 degrees C you can cook a frozen chicken in 10 minutes... dream on.

not every1 can afford &/ wear them + goggles; domestic animals will also suffer & die from it.

Stay inside till the wind changes direction.

2 main rotors is better than 1- a heavy snow drift would be cleared faster over larger area, saving man hours.

Perhaps you live in Florida... rotor down wash doesn't clear snow.

Have you seen those Soviet Army trucks with the jet engines on the back that are used in Chem and Bio units to blow enormous amounts of chemicals onto vehicles like tanks or missiles on the backs of trucks to decontaminate them?

Soviet and Russian air fields use them to melt ice and snow and dry out runways quickly.... too inefficient and slow to do roads, but a good solution for runways...

many interest groups r always ready to stab some1 in the back, & they do it all the time. They call it in legalese "checks & balances".

Yeah, in the rest of the world where decisions are made by the highest bidder it is called corruption.

wrong: the CH-53D/Ks r larger than V-22s:

Width across the rotors... CH-53 is 24m rotor disk diameter, V-22 has two 11.6 metre wide rotors and a width of 25.8 metres...

not only the US military can be "leaner & meaner"; u can't take "probably" to a bank!

The Russian military is getting 10 times the value the US military is getting... it is reflected in the aircraft prices... V-22 has a flyaway cost of over 70 million US dollars... it would have to suck up sea water and fart out gold bars to be value for money... take that to the bank.

didn't they solve it on the Yak-24 & Mi-12? New materials & solutions r going to be used- it's not the 1st time they designed something complex.

Did they use them long enough to find out?

They were never used in mountainous areas either...

at least they could use it for parts or maintenance training.

These Mi-26s might not have been upgraded since the end of the cold war... they could have ancient components that are just no use any more... why buy someone elses problems?

somehow the Americans didn't do it in SE Asia for their C-130/141/5s! That's because SF/SAR helos were enough, & Daisy Cutters could only clear vegetation & enemy personnel, not make the ground even for planes.

That was in a war where they didn't want to build lots of airfields and hospitals and churches and schools... they wanted to murder the locals who dared resist their occupation of their country.

They might fight a few months for one hill but when the fighting moved on they would leave and could care less about that terrain or the people near it.

For the Russians this is their land and these are their people, so anywhere there are human settlements or locations with important wildlife or mineral or energy potential having proper access is actually useful in making it cheaper and easier to access.... unlike a road or rail line an airfield can be located pretty quickly and relatively cheaply, because they don't need to be connected to anything else.

Obviously you select locations... ensure proper drainage... and it doesn't need to be anything like Moscow Airport in terms of services.

A flat stretch of ground 300m long would be fine for An-2 based aircraft in any conditions, and if the local needs demand more support then runways can be extended and improved over time.

In time there will be rail lines and perhaps even basic roads... the latter will promote small population sites along the way where people in cars or vehicles can stop... which means regular truck visits to keep them stocked with food and resources... a rail line could do that as well, rather more efficiently.

I mean for goodness sake... look at your own countries history... it tool a gold rush to develop train links between the two sides of your country, and the communication and trade links that created meant that places in between became viable places to live too if you didn't want to rough it.

Pretty quickly people on each coast realised there were wants on the other side of the country that the other side of the country did not meet and vice versa... so transporting stuff to sell where there is a need equals profit... especially when on the way across the country there are people who also need stuff and produce stuff they need to sell... when there are fewer people in the middle there are fewer people to sell to... a smaller market, which makes business harder... the train lines meant they could sell to either coast as well... and there was money to be made so building roads and airports and rail lines makes a lot of sense if you want to develop new areas.

China has already found that their highly successful high speed train network has greatly improved internal movement in their country, and improved their economy as well because instead of going overseas you can go to a different part of China where they speak your language and use your money but it is different from staying at home.

MRAPs r not needed in those types of remote mountainous terrain.

Which? Afghanistan or Chechnia? Which of those places has no land mine issue or IED issue or RPG threat?

If you are deploying special forces then they need vehicles to move around in...

1 CH-47F can do the same & replace ~2 Mi-8/17s.

But costs ten times more to do so... it would be cheaper to operate 4-5 Hips with smaller loads and better fire power and can be in four or five places at once, compared with a single Chinook that can't be recovered by air without people taking photos of Mi-26s carrying them around the place... there used to be several photos of Halos rescuing Chinooks... but Wiki seems to have removed them all from the Chinook page... I guess the Eastern Front will be eliminated from the pages about WWII as well... but you think they should spend billions of dollars copying the design when they are already developing a new helicopter in the 10-15 ton payload range with China... no wonder the US spends so much on its military...

The V-22s would be even more costly. Right or wrong, India decided it was worth to get them, & that's the bottom line. It's also a matter of pride: their military now operates not only Soviet/RF, but also some American made aircraft, just like the rich Gulf States & Japan.

India has a lot of problems but if they think pissing money away on such crap is worth it then who am I to say they are wrong.

Just don't try to spin the crap that the American stuff is cheaper... that is just bullshit.

They are buying influence and they are paying top dollar for it.

In the west there is a recommended retail price RRP, so you have a good idea of what you expect to pay for things... often there is some flexibility... usually 15% to about 30% depending on the customer, because the RRP includes a nice comfortable profit for the seller... for a good customer they can give up some of that to get a sale.

In India and a lot of other countries around the world there is no such thing as RRP... you know what you paid for it and the more you can get for it the bigger profit you make... knowing there are others who might have paid even less for it and might be prepared to undercut you so you could get left with this shit for yourself.

Indians expect a high offer and they expect to be able to negotiate down to a smaller price, that would be normal with Russia... it is why negotiations take so long and are so drawn out.

The problem with negotiating with the US is that there will likely be a clause in the deal where the person who negotiates it on the Indian side will get a percentage of the deal as a bonus for signing the deal... so all of a sudden negotiating down doesn't make sense... but how the hell can you justify 3 billion dollars for 14 freaken helicopters... oh the best answer is that operational costs make them cheaper over time... India hasn't had them in service yet so there are no numbers anyone can point to and say no they are not cheaper, they are actually much more expensive... and by the time they do that Indian official will be living in Florida or working for Boeing advising them about the junior officials below them, and of course how to cheat the Indian procurement system so they can keep selling over priced spare parts and charging enormous amounts for support...

15 CH-47Fs=~30 Mi-17s, & it's a political message to the PRC that India is friendly not only to the RF but also the US.

It is a signal to China that India doesn't want to cooperate in future with China, which costs them an enormous market, a high tech market, and hitches Indias wagon to a country that is already telling them they can't keep buying stuff from Russia or Iran.

If India want to piss their money away on American shiny toys I think China would not be concerned... especially when soon they will have an equivalent weight class helicopter they are developing with Russia that will probably be much better and much cheaper.

they could use avionics, etc. gear from their retired Tu-142s &/ import it before outfitting re-purposed airframes. Besides, when it comes to electronics & computers, the Indians r not more stupid than Chinese who now make their own MPA.

It is not about being stupid, and how much of the kit inside a Tu-142 is going to fit inside an An-32... and do you think the engines of the An-32 will have enough power take off to power all that equipment?

India could spend billions of dollars developing their own MPA... the result might be as good as the Mays they want to replace but it likely wont be as good as the P-8 or the aircraft the Russians develop to replace their Mays... the fact is that in some areas it is often just cheaper to buy something off the shelf.

Think of it as a car. You could spend years getting the skills to build cars, you could spend enormous amounts of money on tools and materials and make one yourself... it is going to be a slow and expensive process, and even if you succeed you might only want to make three or four vehicles for yourself, wife, adult children etc... those cars are going to be shit... and they are going to be expensive shit... hundreds of thousands of dollars each even if you buy engines and pumps and other things off the shelf.

If you are the head of a large company however and the market for these new cars you are developing is millions, then it makes sense to hire people who already have the expertise to design this car and to build factories to make these cars in enormous numbers, because it is numbers that matter... India doesn't need hundreds of MPAs... they could split the roles and have light cheap An-26 sized patrol aircraft with radios and optical systems for search and rescue and perhaps a system to release Sonobouys if needed, but another aircraft like a P-8 would gather the data and process it and direct the other aircraft to hunt subs or ships.

a smaller variant could appear- Kamov can't survive by only making upgrades & small helos like the Ka-226/62.

It is making Ka-52 on land and at sea, and it is also making the replacement for the Helix aircraft family also used at sea, and the Ka-31 used at sea and on land, plus of course they have designs for future high speed helos where their coaxial rotor design will give them an enormous advantage...

Then why the US continues the CH-47 line while CH-53Ks is being procured & can be sold to CH-47/53 operators worldwide? don't attribute it to corruption only!

Why did the USAF need an F-16 light fighter and the USN need an F-18 light fighter, or F-15/F-14? They managed to work together with the Phantom, but it seems they had different requirements and were happy to spend their own separate budgets separately.

If the tandem rotor design was so fantastic they could have fitted three engines to that aircraft if they wanted to and give it a bigger capacity, but they didn't.

I like to eat red apples, apricots, peaches, tangerines & oranges- 1 type doesn't necessarily exclude all the others. Russian & Chinese airlines operate TU, IL, Airbus & Boeing made planes. They may lose on costs but gain in other ways, being such a large nation with different elevations & climatic zones.

The Be-200 is a much better solution to forest fires in inaccessible places than any type of helicopter in most ways including payload, speed, and range...

The helicopters they already have meet their existing needs so there is no need for another new type... especially for the price.

they'll try to make them a lot better- otherwise it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

I am sure they would try, but you could try and make an octagonal wheel that might be cheaper to make than a round one... you really wont know if it can't be made more efficient until you build one... I agree an octagonal wheel with flat sides would make it bumpy, but with precisely curved sides you might be able to achieve a combination of smooth enough ride, together with a bounce effect that makes it easier to leap in to the air or to slow down faster on a hard surface.... we really don't know until we try, so how about loaning me 10 billion dollars and we can find out...

the trick is not to let them spread close cities.

Which is why Be-200 aircraft with speed and range and decent payload can keep them further from populated areas than any helo type or tilt rotor design could.

big areas in Siberia often get weather that doesn't change much for weeks, & the smog will stay with it.

Big areas of Siberia have little to no people there.

If it's not compacted, it can.

So not particularly effective then.

if it was only the size issue, then they didn't gain much- only by 1.8m!

The difference is freaking enormous... aircraft like both of these things operating at near max payload weights don't just take off vertically straight up into the air... that V-22 would probably need a hundred metres to get airborne with full fuel and payload and the helicopter would not be much better... with that sort of clearing you could probably leave the snow and land a lot of conventional aircraft rather easily... a grader and a roller could be used to quickly pack down snow and dirt for conventional aircraft operations.

true, but the US prints $ whenever it needs them- Russia would fall apart & turn to another Venezuela if tried the same!

You realise that is not going to keep working for much longer don't you... all through history every weapon has resulted in a counter weapon or defence from that weapon... there will come a time when no one accepts US dollars because they are just printed paper money with no real value... countries that have done such things in the past are a good view of what is in Americas future... German children in the 1920s and 1930s making kites out of million deutchmark notes because they were cheaper than buying the paper needed... women with wheel barrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread... America is never going to be able to pay its debts because no one will accept US dollars in payment for it... in fact right now is when you should be paying off your debts while other countries still respect your fiat currency... there is only one thing worse than having a meaningless currency, it is also being in enormous debt to people who wont accept it as payment...

every aircraft is subject to stresses- operating them in different ways can shorten or prolong their useful life. Perhaps that's also why India decided to use her Mi-26s in the lower altitudes & buy CH-47Fs as a substitute.

It is a bit different when the design of the aircraft means it is constantly under stress one way or the other when flying normally... even just flying straight.

Perhaps the "as is" asking price is too high? If it was worth it's weight in gold, as u insinuate, the airframe, rotors & engines alone would be worth it, even if all the rest is junk.

How would the guy in charge of buying Chinooks then turn around and say buying some extra Mi-26s makes sense when he has already stated they are too expensive to operate?

Remember in this deal he wont get any commission at all so will only be earning his government wages which are probably not great.

Don't tell me that there are no Chinooks or Stallions or Super Stallions in the desert bone yard too...

FYI, in different parts of China (I've been there) different mutually unintelligible languages (incorrectly called "dialects") r spoken; not every1 there can speak Mandarin.

Well then that would make internal travel even more exotic... these regions are known... you could map out where your dialect is spoken and start by going there...

I never implied that!

Actually you said several times that the much more expensive American aircraft are better value for money...

Russia does the same, even if for a lot le$$.

It is standard practise to improve profits with service contracts, but what the US and France do should be called gouging.

no, it's the Indian way of balancing bigger potential bullies against each other to improve her bargaining position.

Bargaining as an enemy is the worst possible way to do so... you will get much better trade terms from a friend than a rival or enemy.

Japan tried to do it with the USSR & Germany in WWII & lost an empire.

Not at all, Japan was a rival to Britain in the Asian region, and could never have been friends with Britain or France at the time.

Japanese actions in Korea and mainland china meant colonial Britain could not be an ally of Japan... so the obvious choice is their enemy.

The Japanese tried to steal the resources of Siberia first by attacking through Mongolia, but when soundly defeated they turned south for the oil and resources they needed. British and American sanctions were a contributing factor there too.

China didn't- they could fit imported gear from Russia on their Y-8/9 airframes- but decided to make them locally. India I'm sure will later start making her own MPA.

China has a western funded electronics industry of their own... making the electronic components for computers around the world... in fact the components used in the P-8 were likely made in China...

Tandem rotor helicopters typically require less power to hover and achieve low speed flight as compared to single rotor helicopters. Both configurations typically require the same power to achieve high speed flight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_rotors

Bigger tandem-rotor helos will just need 2 more powerful engines.

Yeah, just use that bigger engine you have sitting there doing nothing... what was it called again?

The bottleneck for any new helicopter is a suitable engine... the new PD-12 engines for the Mi-26 will be much more reliable and while slightly heavier than the orc engine currently used it will be more powerful and more efficient... rather improving performance...

The Altai Republic covers an area of 92,600 square kilometers (35,800 sq mi) and has a population of 206,168 (2010 Census), the least-populous republic of Russia and federal subject in the Siberian Federal District. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_Republic
More people live around it:

If there are people there then there are people and airfields to fight the fires...

u stated that tilt-rotors substitute for bigger helos- ur own data shows that the current V-22s rotors rn't much bigger than the CH-53s which been used for decades.

The design purpose of a tilt rotor aircraft is to do jobs previously done by helos, but increasing their speed and range... the fact that they need as big an open area to operate as existing helo options is a bad thing, not a plus... even with expensive US helicopters these tilt rotors are even more expensive... if they only offer an increase in speed then WTF is the point?

The US is will be operating both; some other militaries will too, while others will get CH-53Ks & won't procure V-22s.

Aw, come on... if you are an ally of the US you have to buy the gear...

so the consensus in Indian MOD is all for Chinooks & against Mi-26s.
But there r a few other operators, & none of them picked up the phone or emailed to bid on it!

When they need new aircraft it always works out better to buy from the maker and not some secondary customer who would offer no support or backup if there was a problem... they just want a quick buck to get rid of something they are not currently using... I suspect they would be in a much worse position than the Russians in that Russia makes most of the bits in their aircraft, but for a Belarus bird most of the parts will come from Ukraine... and of course they can be trusted...

I know of no CH-46/47s that had to be returned from any boneyard- that in itself a sign that they fair better & last longer in service.

For the price of them they would never be sent to a boneyard... they must be fucking solid gold...

True, but she was also sitting on the fence waiting for Moscow to be taken by the Germans, while the latter insisted she attacks the RFE ASAP.

Are they any different from the Soviets western allies, who put off D Day until it was pretty clear if they put it off for a year the soviet troops would be meeting them on the French beaches instead of the Germans.
The west was happy to trade millions of Soviet lives to keep their own losses to a minimum and the price paid was the creation of eastern europe and a divided germany... that latter wouldn't both them very much, but all these new HATO countries crawling at the feet of the country that signed off on them being in the Soviet sphere after the war.

The US also insisted that the Soviets attack Japan within months of defeating Germany because the US didn't want to be left fighting Japan for the next ten years alone.

Again the Soviets managed to turn a situation to their advantage and regained a lot of territory previously lost.

Now they r garrisoned by the US, but lately started losing faith in them.

Well there was always a faction not wanting US troops there... it is a natural feeling... how many foreign troops are based on US soil at the moment?

The faction against US troops being there will increase over time, but look at guantanimo bay... you have to burn them out most of the time like cockroaches.

As 1 parts designer/maker admitted, they couldn't make a certain part until that EP-3 fell into their hands.

The point is that they still would have made their version, it is just that without access to the EP-3, its performance would have been inferior to what it is now.

The west learned a lot about air defence systems after the cold war when they bought up ex Soviet systems... the British bought a Tunguska SPAAG, while the US bought an SA-12 missile system... though minus some of the radar sets and probably all of the ESM equipment...

Bigger range allows more missions to be done

No it doesn't.

It is a helicopter... it can land and refuel at multiple places along its flight path to get any range you need. Payload is what is important because it determines what it can carry and the Russian helos carry more.

The CH-47s can & did also self-deploy: ..Operation Just Cause in Panama,..involved the long-range self-deployment of MH-47s, including over-water flight, into the country using FARPs (Forward Area Refueling/Rearming Points) .

Big deal... most helicopters could do that... any country can arrange for a ship between objectives for the helicopter to land and refuel... it just isn't that hard.

The Apache is designed to self deploy to Europe... ie take out the 1200 round ammo magazine for the gun and replace it with a fuel tank and put four wing mounted fuel tanks and it can fly from the US to Europe... but it is risky nice to have but hope they never use feature... it is much much faster to fly them by cargo plane and land them onsite.

not all the gear!

No, of course not, because for ally, read slave, you can only have what nanny state tells you you can have... so F-5s for central and south american states that are good, and F-16s for europe if they are good... but it looks like anyone who can afford F-35s can have them because they look like a polished turd and they want to get them sold before the customers realise they can't do the job any better than the much cheaper previous models.

then, they'll likely end up selling/bartering it back to Russia- she lost several of them in recent years & may not mind getting it, even for parts & training.

I don't think they will be needing it so they would probably let the price go down a bit first.

Iraq captured a few CH-47s from Iran, & AFAIK they remained there grounded & unsold, even for parts, until the US invaded.

So Iraq didn't have a use for them either...

they knew that the Germans were too strong in 1942-43 in W. Europe & there was a big risk of being pushed back into the sea, so they fought them in N. Africa & Italy instead.

They could have landed in Spain and then moved through to france if they wanted, but they didn't want... it was much easier for them to let germany and the soviets fight it out while watching from the sidelines.

The losses they would have taken with an opposed landing would still be less than the losses the Soviets were taking during the same period, but obviously the west could care less about that.

but they can't fly fully loaded as high as CH-47Fs do- the Himalayas r a lot higher than the highest mountains in Afghanistan. Those pics in the page I posted leave no doubt that they can also recover the crashed helos of their own type & Mi-8/17s + light fighters.

Hips operate there too... but why should Russia care about operating helos in the Himalayas?

The advantages of tandem rotor aircraft are also shared by coaxial design helos too you do know that?

Flying at high altitudes has as much to do with engines as rotor layout...

with longer range, fewer stops/refuelings r needed, so it's a force multiplier.

No it isn't... not at over 200 million a pop, it is a drag on the budget even if it was free to operate and maintain.

Besides, Iraq is smaller & has less high mountain ranges. & only in Kurdistan.

A bit like Russia... they have Hips and their new Mi-38s that operate rather well at high altitudes... they don't need Chinooks.

the German & Italian allied Franco regime would resist, the high Pyrenees would have to be crossed.

If they wanted to fight the Germans they have to make a choice... the fact is that they largely did nothing... they keep bleating on about their amazing navy and their wonderful airforce and they basically did fuck all till 1944 when they realised if they didn't get into the game they were going to miss out on the spoils.

The spanish would have resisted... sure... what did they expect... cups of tea and scones?

The Soviets crossed mountain ranges and deserts to defeat the Japs...

the Pamirs, Tian Shan + mountains in the Caucasus & Kamchatka r not much lower, with deserts, taiga & seas between them.

They have managed thus far with the helos and aircraft they have. Spending billions to develop a brand new helicopter design or a tilt rotor design makes no sense at all if the benefit is only going to be minor.

Care to explain why the US didn't develop coaxials insead of tandems?

Coaxial designs have very very complex and heavy gearboxes, yet they have all the advantages of tandems in half the rotor area.

On a tandem you can also get a situation where the turbulence from the front rotor reduces the lift and performance of the rear rotor set... the solution with the Chinook is to raise the rear rotor set out of the way... with the coaxial rotor design you need blade separation anyway.

Perhaps 1 day we'll see a coaxial/tandem hybrid!

That is possible for a super heavy lift aircraft to keep the size down...

the Indians have enough $ to waste- it's their way of exercising soft power, as they know that US loves $ more than anything else. With US, Japan & Russia as a quasi allies, they can talk to & treat the PRC as equals.

It gets them a seat at the table but it doesn't make China listen... hell China doesn't have to listen to Russia or the US if it doesn't want to and Russia listens, but doesn't do as its told either... I think that is pretty obvious to everyone except those in the west adding more sanctions... and of course the US does as it pleases.

they may need less costly Ka-102s with even better performance.

Yeah, without an aircraft that needs replacing I really don't see the Ka-102 being more than a drawing.

If Mil was Ukrainian then they might have a shot but only the engines of the Mi-26 are Ukrainian and they are going to be replaced by more powerful and more fuel efficient and more reliable engines within the next 4-5 years... which is really not long enough to get the Ka-102 working and into production.

Russia may get directly militarily involved in L. America & fly them over the Andes that separate Colombia & Venezuela.
Mexico & Peru have Mil-26s & may augment/replace them with more affordable tandem helos- they r not India!

I really don't see that as critical to the Russian military procurement budget... if they are transfering troops or cargo an Il-476 would be much faster... and by the time any Russian tandem helo could be in service and ready to do such a thing they will also likely have Il-106 and An-124 with new Russian engines that could do an even better job much much cheaper.

like B-17/Liberator bombing raids with loss of Ks crews, protecting N. Atlantic convoys against the U-boats & Luftwaffe, & fighting in N. Africa + the Japanese in the Pacific.

They did the bare minimum... and it was a war they created themselves...

if Sikorsky & other designers produced them, they would cost even more than tandems- so they actually saved $Bs!

Why do you say that?

A tandems gearboxes and engine layouts are no cheaper than coaxial, the fact is that both are more expensive than conventional layouts... I wouldn't say the Coaxial design is much more complicated and results in a much smaller helicopter design.

The new high speed helicopter designs tend to have coaxial rotor layouts because it is balanced for every retreating blade (one on each side) there is an advancing blade (one on each side) so retreating blade stall issues are eliminated and the advancing blades are enough to support the aircraft at speeds a conventional helo would roll over and crash...

The US helicopter designs spent the money developing tandems and if they want high speed helicopter designs they will have to look at coaxial designs too and learn their problems and issues to get their benefits.

They want high speed helicopters so I can see them wanting to invest in new coaxial designs... what I don't understand is Russia wanting to waste money on tandem helicopter designs... the payoff just is not there.

Bingo! A smaller coaxial tandem Ka-102 variant that will leave the CH-47Fs in the dust!

When I say super heavy... I mean 40-60 ton payload class would benefit from four main rotors in the area or space of two... it really does not make sense to have so many blades over such a large area for a helicopter carrying less than an Mi-26.

The Mi-26 has a rotor disk width of 32m, but a coaxial model could probably effectively reduce that to perhaps 22-24m, though the gearbox for that much hp would be tricky...

In the USSR/RF & USA, what did the Be-42/200s, An-22/72/74s, Ka-62s & the V-22s replace?! Not all new types that enter serial production need to replace less capable aircraft.

Be-12 Mail, An-22 was intended to replace the Il-76 in the paradropping role but was found to be unsuitable for airdops, it was also a stopgap heavy transport for use until the An-124 was ready... and currently the An-124 is replacing the An-22 till the Il-106 is ready. The An-72 was supposed to replace the An-26 from short airfields but was not so easy to maintain or so cheap to operate, Ka-62 is a replacement for the Mi-2 and Mi-4 as a light transport helicopter smaller and lighter than the Mi-8/17.

V-22? The Russians don't use V-22s.

having fixed wing workhorses helps, but rotary-wing workhorses r also needed, just like in Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iran/Iraq since 1969/79, & in India now:

I agree, but they have rotary wing workhorses... they are Mi-8, Mi-17, Mi-24, Mi-35, Mi-26, and now Mi-38 and Ansat and Ka-226T all doing an excellent job.