Ka-52 in Russian Air Force

Some interesting video stills

Nice!

GarryB you have stated earlier in this topic that the Arbalet could probably detect incoming MANPADS at distances about 5km away. Do you have sources or links to the Thread Detecting and Classifying performance of the Arbalet, would appreciate for such informations?

It was included in early advertising material for the radar system.

The Rusarm website used to have entries on Russian weapons but they have closed that part of their site down.

Here is a website: http://aerospace.boopidoo.com/philez/Su-15TM%20PICTURES%20&%20DOCS/Overscan%27s%20guide%20to%20Russian%20Military%20Avionics.htm

Scroll down to the section on the FH-01 Arbalet and scroll down through the models to find this:

Air-to-air modes

Search limits, azimuth: 360°, elevation ±30°
Detection range for Attack aircraft: 15 km, Stinger missile: 5 km
Tracking limits, azimuth: ±60°, elevation: ±30°
Tracks up to 20 targets

I suspect his source was similar to where I got the info.

I think Arbalet as MMW radar could detect MANPAD from frontal direction, where radar look. But Ka-52 is equipped with with MAWS sensors for round the clock detection of incoming missiles as part of ESM suit, which than launch chaffs and flares and DIRCM against missiles. If I'm correct Ka-52 will soon also get radar jammer for protection against AMRAAM missiles.

The nose mounted MMW radar antenna only sees about 70 degrees and would not be much good for detecting a stinger attack.

It is the above rotor mounted cm wave antenna that can detect stingers at 5km, though the president-M DIRCM suite could probably detect it from similar distances or further away due to their IR signature and of course it can also use laser turrets to dazzle the IR seeker and defeat the missile, so the above rotor antenna becomes less necessary. Knowing what is in the air space around you would be useful however IMHO.

for example the Mi-28 Arbalet uses both CMW and MMW radars in once so one is for surveillance the other for FCR,ground mapping and following, so the surveillance should be able to rotate to cover 360° or it is just kind a lack of surveillance.

The radar in the Mi-28N is different and has two antennas in the one ball above the rotor... the CM wave antenna giving 360 degree coverage and offering much greater detection and tracking range than the MMW radar. The MMW radar points forward in an arc of about 70-90 degrees.

Because of the frequency the MMW radar has a range of between 12km and about 18km or so depending on the target and the weather/moisture level in the air. The cm wave radar sees much further and is less effected by moisture and weather conditions and will likely show air targets at much greater ranges... 25-30km for large aircraft, 15-20 for fighter sized aircraft and large missiles and 5-8km for small missiles.

The radar on the Ka-52 has a MMW radar in the nose and they don't seem to be fitting the above rotor mounted cm wave 360 degree radar in the aircraft they are testing... perhaps they think President-M can do the job and 360 degree radar is not needed... or is not worth the effort/cost.

GarryB wrote:
The radar on the Ka-52 has a MMW radar in the nose and they don't seem to be fitting the above rotor mounted cm wave 360 degree radar in the aircraft they are testing... perhaps they think President-M can do the job and 360 degree radar is not needed... or is not worth the effort/cost.

The site you've posted also shows the small mast mounted MMW radar of Ka-50N, i guess this could be also done in CMW version for KA-52 and also the Ka-52K was said to have an AESA radar which is under development i guess there are no informations about its performance.

I seem to remember they had problems in mounting antennas above the rotors, and the fact that they seem to have dropped them suggests they either couldn't solve the problem, or decided the return wasn't worth the effort.

The new AESA radar being developed is going to be fitted in the nose of the naval Ka-52s AFAIK and will replace the MMW radar antenna.

Its performance should actually be pretty good though it is likely to be more like a cm wave radar than a mmw radar as less detail performance is needed at sea, while the long range detection and engagement of patrol boats etc is more useful.

Well, i don't know if they had problems with the mast mounted radar for the Kamov models, but i guess it wasn't the Arbalet radar, it was a much smaller radar maybe a scorpion or a radar that had the designation khinzal-V, don't know much about the second, but the first one is pretty old and was even tested on Mi-24 versions.


BTW, are there any forums where are you not active, GarryB?

Mainly only active on this forum now...

You will find old posts from GarryB on the Key publishing forum, and GazB on the Milphotos net but I pretty much got sick of having the same discussions over and over about how the Soviet military did not win WWII against the Germans because of numbers and the snow, or how all Soviet weapons are copies of US designs yet still manage to be inferior blah blah blah.

It was the same old story... a few older people who were set in their cold war mentality that didn't listen no matter what argument I put forward or what evidence was presented, plus a few younger posters that often started with the stupid remarks and ending up not actually agreeing with me but at least having a less biased impression of Russia when we finish.

The old diehards cannot be swayed, but the real problem is the steady stream of newbies that would pop up every once and a while with a stupid comment which would then descend into the same old arguments/discussions.

The underlying problem was that some of the old diehards were mods, so it wasn't a level playing field when it came to discussions... ie claiming Putin murdered that guy in Britain with Polonium personally was OK but saying anything against George Bush was disrespectful of the office he holds. Of course currently slinging off at Obama is OK because apparently a democrat president is not as sacred as a republican president... and all that sort of rubbish.

Anyway, I have found a site where Russia is not a bad word, so I am happy...

Back on topic however... the main problem is that both the Ka-50 and Mi-28 were intended to have radar from the beginning, but their very long period of development and then stagnation where there was no money to complete their development from prototype to operational aircraft has led to lots of components and systems becoming obsolete before the aircraft were even ready for service.

There is also talk of the Mi-28M having new EO sensors, so even at this stage a change of systems is possible.

The early models of the Ka-52 were notorious for having redundant EO systems with balls all over the place.

Just from memory the Kinzhal was going to be a pod suspended under the Su-25TM, which from memory was dropped in favour of the Kopyo, though I think it and the Kopyo and the Arbalet were related systems for light aircraft and helos.

The mast mounted radar on the Kamovs is the cm wave antenna with 360 degree coverage and is much smaller than the fixed forward looking mmw radar antenna in the nose.

Would be good if they moved to a modern fixed phased array cm wavelength radar for mounting on the mast with electronic scanning.

Their work on panel arrays that can be integrated into the aircrafts skin should make it easier to mount it where it is needed.

GarryB wrote:Mainly only active on this forum now...

I too shall join after a long period of lurking. If you remember me

(can't believe my name wasn't taken)

GarryB wrote:Mainly only active on this forum now...

You will find old posts from GarryB on the Key publishing forum, and GazB on the Milphotos net but I pretty much got sick of having the same discussions over and over about how the Soviet military did not win WWII against the Germans because of numbers and the snow, or how all Soviet weapons are copies of US designs yet still manage to be inferior blah blah blah.

It was the same old story... a few older people who were set in their cold war mentality that didn't listen no matter what argument I put forward or what evidence was presented, plus a few younger posters that often started with the stupid remarks and ending up not actually agreeing with me but at least having a less biased impression of Russia when we finish.

The old diehards cannot be swayed, but the real problem is the steady stream of newbies that would pop up every once and a while with a stupid comment which would then descend into the same old arguments/discussions.

The underlying problem was that some of the old diehards were mods, so it wasn't a level playing field when it came to discussions... ie claiming Putin murdered that guy in Britain with Polonium personally was OK but saying anything against George Bush was disrespectful of the office he holds. Of course currently slinging off at Obama is OK because apparently a democrat president is not as sacred as a republican president... and all that sort of rubbish.

Anyway, I have found a site where Russia is not a bad word, so I am happy...

I understand that, there are realy to much stereotyped trolls shouting 1:1 things they have heared somewhere instead of using their brains. They tend to spit poison all over putin with the same methods like the propaganda medias, trying to defend Pussy Riot and making such stupid statements like "How can he jail this girls THEY ARE MOTHERS"...yeah totaly new to me that beeing a mother protects you from beeing jailed for criminal activity. The major problem is people who trying to debate with the same stereotypes and lies they hear they end up not knowing how to keep their arguement alive until they recognize they are maybe wrong but still prefer to play the hardliner, ignoring all crimes this ****s did just to blame putin for something that he wasn't even object of this "demonstration".

GarryB wrote:

The mast mounted radar on the Kamovs is the cm wave antenna with 360 degree coverage and is much smaller than the fixed forward looking mmw radar antenna in the nose.

Would be good if they moved to a modern fixed phased array cm wavelength radar for mounting on the mast with electronic scanning.

Their work on panel arrays that can be integrated into the aircrafts skin should make it easier to mount it where it is needed.

Looking on the small picture of the mast mounted radar from the side you have posted, it has the same marks where the radar looking at, so it is a forward looking mast mounted radar, the point is a mast mounted radar major point is the surveillance and not Fire Controll Radar, because spotting is much more benefit for accomplishing tasks for the crew than just a fire control radar.
The question is, if it is a CMW radar for surveillance how it should move, through RPM from rotorhead itself or is it semi-rigid to the plattform that it needs a self rotating mechanism?

I guess the mast mounted radar on the picture was never made for surveillance for 360° azimuth.

I too shall join after a long period of lurking. If you remember me

I remember the handle but that is all I am afraid, most of the names I remember from Keypublishing were the people I disagreed a lot with like Tom Cooper, whom I disagreed with most things about except that Iran was the root of all evil in the region (he knows a bit more about Iran than most Americans and I kinda got the feeling he actually liked them). There were others like SOC and Jonesy who were military professionals I could learn from and were actually interested in Russian/Soviet stuff, though Sean was more interested than Jonesy who perhaps could be described as having professional respect for the other team.
There were a few members from Greece and Serbia and of course India that I liked a lot, but then even some posters who started out very ignorant of Russia learned a great deal and perhaps had more respect even if they didn't actually like Russian/Soviet stuff like Phantom II.
Then there was overscan and arthur and harry who had excellent knowledge...

Of course at the end of the day no matter how much I miss it... it is gone... Glenn and Ink and Elp and lots of other posters simply aren't there so there is nothing really to go back to even if I wanted to... and to be honest I am happy to spend time here in discussion with someone interested in Russian stuff, trading views and opinions, but there it is like trying to convert to a new religion... there is simply too much indoctrination to overcome. On general military forums most westerners are happy to talk about Spitfires and Mustangs and how the B-17 and B-29 won the war... oh and D-day and the battle of the bulge were the only significant actions in Europe.


Sorry for the above off topic and the off topic below:

arguement alive until they recognize they are maybe wrong but still prefer to play the hardliner, ignoring all crimes this ****s did just to blame putin for something that he wasn't even object of this "demonstration".

More important they complain that Putin controls Russia with an Iron fist and then demand he interfere in the Russian court system and release this person or that group. It is amusing because in the west it is very common for people to be released from prison for purely political reasons from political pressure and no one cares. When Putin refuses to interfere with a legal thing like a punk rock band acting like c#nts they complain even more.

If they did what they did in Saudi Arabia in a Mosque you would never hear from them again except their posthumous last album.

It seems you can break the law as long as you are anti putin... means you are not a terrorist, you are a freedom fighter.

Looking on the small picture of the mast mounted radar from the side you have posted, it has the same marks where the radar looking at, so it is a forward looking mast mounted radar, the point is a mast mounted radar major point is the surveillance and not Fire Controll Radar, because spotting is much more benefit for accomplishing tasks for the crew than just a fire control radar.
The question is, if it is a CMW radar for surveillance how it should move, through RPM from rotorhead itself or is it semi-rigid to the plattform that it needs a self rotating mechanism?

I guess the mast mounted radar on the picture was never made for surveillance for 360° azimuth.

I rather suspect that like most things on 1980s and 1990s Mi-28 and Ka-50/52 prototypes the mast mounted radar was a non functional mockup.

Just looking at the size of the ball on the Mi-28N the large area can only be described as being for a fixed forward facing antenna for the MMW radar component and the lower part of the ball with the electronics and perhaps an antenna for the cm wave component to turn around the middle with the top for associated electronics for that. It is only the cm wave component that needs to move and because of its frequency it would need a rather smaller antenna to do the job.

I suspect both domes are fixed and it is the cm wave antenna turns inside while in the Mi-28N the MMW antenna is fixed. The ka-50/52 has the MMW antenna in the nose of the aircraft.

I remember a model of the Mi-40 which was a Hind like assault transport based on the Mi-28 that also have an above rotor mounted radar ball, but I have not seen it anywhere else.

Certainly being able to package the CM and MMW radars in this ball would be useful for Helos, but also for UAVs and light aircraft and even CAS aircraft and even small naval vessels or land vehicles.

A ball on a retractible arm would be useful for Krisantema for instance to find and engage targets but also to look for enemy air threats.

No 44 spotted on the streets of Rostov on Don (home of Rostvertol)...together with the other 2 new airframes on the previous page confirms the news that Rostvertol is now assembling Ka-52's

(Mi-26 @ aviaforum.ru)

Vympel wrote:I too shall join after a long period of lurking. If you remember me

(can't believe my name wasn't taken)

Yep I remember your nic ...welcome aboard.

GarryB wrote:Mainly only active on this forum now...

You will find old posts from GarryB on the Key publishing forum, and GazB on the Milphotos net but I pretty much got sick of having the same discussions over and over about how the Soviet military did not win WWII against the Germans because of numbers and the snow, or how all Soviet weapons are copies of US designs yet still manage to be inferior blah blah blah.

It was the same old story... a few older people who were set in their cold war mentality that didn't listen no matter what argument I put forward or what evidence was presented, plus a few younger posters that often started with the stupid remarks and ending up not actually agreeing with me but at least having a less biased impression of Russia when we finish.

The old diehards cannot be swayed, but the real problem is the steady stream of newbies that would pop up every once and a while with a stupid comment which would then descend into the same old arguments/discussions.

The underlying problem was that some of the old diehards were mods, so it wasn't a level playing field when it came to discussions... ie claiming Putin murdered that guy in Britain with Polonium personally was OK but saying anything against George Bush was disrespectful of the office he holds. Of course currently slinging off at Obama is OK because apparently a democrat president is not as sacred as a republican president... and all that sort of rubbish.

I'm surprised anyone even bothers to post in the Russian Photos thread on mp.net... place is a joke. I'll leave it at that

Now we have to wait for Boyan to start posting how great the Ka-52 is, and everything will be ok

Hey, hey. More and more of the "good guys" are coming here. Niiiice.

A few new posters here on this thread... while I have your attention if you look on the home screen there is a section called rules and introductions. Please take the time to have a read through the rules thread and perhaps also a read through some introduction pages just so you know who you are talking to.

If you haven't already done so could you then please post your own introduction page with as little or as much info about yourself as you like.

Thanks in advance.

Cyberspec wrote:
Yep I remember your nic ...welcome aboard.

Fellow Aussie represent!

Who was assembling Ka-52s alone before Rosvertol got in the game? Progress?

THey were and are building them, so far Rostevrtol is just doing final assembly.

Any info how many Ka-52 Easterm MD get till now?

New Ka-52 just entered service - but it doesn`t say how many.

Southern Military District received the first batch of "Alligator"


Southern Military District (SOUTH) has received the first batch of attack helicopters Ka-52 "Alligator". As reported in a press release the Ministry of Defense, the helicopters arrived at the air base of army aviation in the Krasnodar region and begin to fly in March 2013.

At an air base in Krasnodar helicopters arrived on their own. February 19 Defense Ministry reported that the helicopters have already tested in flight after building in the seaside plant "Progress".

What a number of helicopters arrived in SOUTH, not specified. All in the first half of 2013 troops districts receive more than ten helicopters Ka-52.

Previously head of the press service Igor SOUTH Gorbulya told that the airbase district already received more than ten attack helicopters Mi-28N "Night Hunter", the new attack helicopters Mi-35M and Mi-8AMTSh modernized. All helicopters are equipped for SOUTH satellite navigation systems GLONASS / GPS.

In 2011, the Russian Defense Ministry bought 140 attack helicopters Ka-52 "Alligator". Total 2020 the Defense Ministry plans to get about a thousand helicopters, including the Mi-28N, Ka-226, "Ansat", Mi-35, Mi-26T2 and Ka-52.

Ka-52 "Alligator" is designed to engage air and ground equipment (including armor) and manpower. The helicopter is armed with 30 mm gun 2A42, two guns UPK-23-250 caliber 23 mm in containers, as well as guided and unguided rockets, which are mounted on four or six hard points.

The crew of the helicopter is designed for two people. The Ka-52 can reach speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour and cover up to 1,200 kilometers. The maximum height of its flight - 5500 meters.

LINK

I wonder how much those Ka-52 in North Caucasus will be there also for show in Olimpic games. There will be all three types of new helicopters, Mi-28N, Mi-35 and Ka-52.

The lens spotter under the name "An-22" in Rostov-on-Don, 28 February 2013 were two helicopters Ka-52, collected on "Rostvertol" and passing there test after assembly - bearing the number "45 Red" and "55 red". As already mentioned, the "Rostvertol" from January 2013 is going to 16 Ka-52 of those made in 2012 of "Arsenyev Aviation Company" Progress "(as our blog previously reported ) Thus, we can suggest that the 16 helicopters were collected continuous ordinal registration as board rooms of red color with "41" to "56".
These 16 helicopters are for delivery in the 393rd Sevastopol military air base for the Russian Air Force, stationed at the airport Korenovsk (Krasnodar region). First collected in Rostov-on-Don, the Ka-52 (tail number "42 Red", the serial number 06.01) arrived in Korenovsk February 19, 2013.

Google translated from: http://bmpd.livejournal.com/469351.html

TheArmenian wrote:

The lens spotter under the name "An-22" in Rostov-on-Don, 28 February 2013 were two helicopters Ka-52, collected on "Rostvertol" and passing there test after assembly - bearing the number "45 Red" and "55 red". As already mentioned, the "Rostvertol" from January 2013 is going to 16 Ka-52 of those made in 2012 of "Arsenyev Aviation Company" Progress "(as our blog previously reported ) Thus, we can suggest that the 16 helicopters were collected continuous ordinal registration as board rooms of red color with "41" to "56".
These 16 helicopters are for delivery in the 393rd Sevastopol military air base for the Russian Air Force, stationed at the airport Korenovsk (Krasnodar region). First collected in Rostov-on-Don, the Ka-52 (tail number "42 Red", the serial number 06.01) arrived in Korenovsk February 19, 2013.

Google translated from: http://bmpd.livejournal.com/469351.html

recognize the extra HF-antenna at the tail never seen it on any Ka-52,so the fin antennas are definetley UHF antenna and this is now the HF-antenna.

Do those new Ka-52 have new radar jammers, that was newly developed for Ka-52 and Su-25? If they get them, than Ka-52 have full ESM equipment.

Does anyone know if there is a DCS:Ka-52 in development?

I guess close cooperation when they were making Ka-50 was OK in terms of security, but they might want to retain a bit more secrecy regarding these new aircraft...

The land based attack helos and naval models would be ideal for a computer game where you control a Mistral class carrier with Ka-52s, Ka-29s, Ka-226Ts and other helos on board for a variety of missions. Future expansion packs could include other areas you could sail to...

They are working on DCS: Combined Arms right now, so I doubt it.

http://www.sdelanounas.ru/blogs/30040/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5c_WOatCY

Five new Ka-52 helicopters in eastern military district, yellow 01,02,21,22 and 23 shown

Came across the following interesting description of dirty tactics employed by western competitors to the Ka-50 from back in the 1990's (from the MyCity Military Forum)

In September 1992, the Black Shark was displayed at the Farnborough Air Show near London, where it created a real stir. Strange as it may seem, the credit for this does not go to the Kamov designers only.

The UK Embassy delayed a visa to the Black Shark's general designer Sergei Mikheyev, and he had to give instructions on its unloading from an An-124 Ruslan cargo aircraft by phone. When he finally made it to London, it transpired that technical support experts and test pilots had no visas. Colleagues from the Tupolev design bureau helped Mikheyev unpack the helicopter, and assembly it for the exhibition. But he had no right to fly it, and had to put a notice on the windscreen: "Sorry, we cannot fly because..."
CNN reporters saw the notice, and staged a huge row. Everyone was talking about "insidious rivals." The Brits immediately provided the visas, but the pilots arrived in Farnborough when the air show was about to close.

This is how Sergei Mikheyev and his team started learning the seamy side of the world arms market. It appeared that some arm producers would stop at nothing to prevent their rivals from scoring success. Sometimes, these attempts border on a joke. I was involved in one of these myself.

and this....

At the time, I was working for a newspaper which issued the first joint Russian-American publication entitled "We." Materials were prepared in Moscow and Washington, D.C., and printed in the United States. Color print was not used for weeklies in Russia in the early 1990s. The KA-50 general designer and I decided to write an article about two helicopters - the Russian Kamov vs. the American Apache. We compared the characteristics mentioned in ad booklets. The Shark surpassed the An-64 Apache in cruise speed and some other indicators. The Apache was better fitted our for night operations. This was an unbiased comparison.

We were very surprised to see the proofs which arrived from Washington. All characteristics of our Ka-50 were downgraded compared to the Apache. They quoted the Shark's cruise speed with Apache' attack speed, which is bound to be higher than in normal flight. We showed these official documents to the Russian editor. He corrected everything in our presence and sent the proofs back to the U.S. But the newspaper was published with the U.S.-preferred figures.