I meant that if a big coaxial 10-15-20T payload helo appears with just 2 main rotors 1 above the other, it will need to be a lot bigger, with fuselage larger & wider than CH-46/57 & even the CH-53.
No it wont.
If you made the Mi-26 with the same engines and two sets of main rotors slightly smaller than the existing rotors it could be rather smaller than either of those two american helicopters because the payload requirement is smaller than for the Mi-26.
The size of the fuselage is largely irrelevant for the payload capacity of a helo... you could design the helo to carry slung loads and make the cabin almost nonexistent... just crew and fuel... no need even for a tail really... a jet engine thrust booster to increase forward speed would be fine.
they'll be on different levels, just like on CH-46/57- the front rotors lower than those in the back; so they won't need to much extra space between the front & the back rotors.
Even if the blades of the two rotor sets are 10 centimetres apart that means two side by side sets of main rotors... so compared with a helo with the same sized rotors one on top of the other it will be twice as long taking up twice the area.
Coaxial rotor helos can have short tails that don't even extend beyond the main rotor because unlike a conventional helo which needs a long momentum arm to increase the force of that tiny little tail rotor a coaxial rotor helo uses main blade momentum to turn...
at least the VDV is looking into it; the Marines, VMF, FSB & MChS may follow.
And so they should look at all options, but at the end of the day they will almost certainly end up with a coaxial helicopter with a few pusher propeller or pusher jet engine designs... that is high speed helo designs because they wont need a whole new design to be invented and have all potential creases ironed out...
Siberia & many parts of C./N. Russia is covered with the biggest forest on the planet- from the Baltic to the Bering sea. it's like finding a big clearing in the Amazon Jungle or tropical N. Australia. Even in a place with all trees burned years ago, the ground may be full of boulders, potholes, logs & stumps.
Just saw an episode of Russia from Above.... a very entertaining and beautiful video, and it shows the air traffic in various regions... over asia and europe it is busy but over the far east of Russia and the arctic it is not except aircraft going across to other destinations. It mentions there that most travel is by air and every mine has an airstrip they are really not busy because of the cost of commercial airlines not really making much money commercially.... having 40 million dollar Tandem helos or 100 million dollar tilt rotors is not going to change that... in fact it will make air travel less desirable.
Like I keep saying they already have air connectivity... mostly Mi-8s and An-2s over the shorter routes and larger aircraft for the bigger settlements and ports... tandem rotor helos don't offer any real advantages and neither do tilt rotors.
The best way to improve the situation is actually rail lines because rail travel is cheaper and easier and would open up the region the way the rail lines in the US opened up the country too.
And with the transport routes between Asia and europe they have every reason to expand their rail network and make it faster and more efficient.
there'll be many problems for different customers the Ka-102 is worth producing for.
The problem for the Ka-102 is that there will be a lot of much cheaper solutions around...
I was on a CV, & even with email being used, regular mail is a big thing for morale.
That might be true but they don't need to develop a new class of 12 ton payload helicopter just to send mail to the very few Russian sailors who get to sail outside of Russian waters for any period of time.
Especially when their new carriers will have EMALS cats and therefore also large COD fixed wing aircraft with much better flight performance than any helo or tiltrotor.
they'll be armed, but not as heavily as non-transport helos.
You mean not as well as current Russian equivalent troop transport helos... Ka-29 at sea and Mi-8/-17 carry rocket pods and machine guns and anti tank missiles as standard...
The CH-53s & their Western competitors can't do the job of the CH-57s. Using the Mi-26 to do all its missions + what a smaller helo can do is destructive & uneconomical. It's like using An-124 & IL-476s to haul cargo that IL-76/276/An-12 normally would. That's why they r developing a 15T helo with China; however, it too may need help from a tandem-rotor helo, just like the CH-53.
When the only tool you have is a hammer treat every problem like it is a nail...
A 10-12 ton capacity helo is not big enough to carry their vehicles, but carries twice as much as the helos they currently use. The fact that they are developing a 10-15 ton payload helicopter with China doesn't mean they are going to mass produce it and put it into service in their navy or army.
They might decide now that they are developing new Russian engines for the Mi-26 that they will make a lot more of them... using Il-476s to haul cargo is only overkill if there is only 30 tons... if they wait until there is 50 tons to move then they would be perfect... and with the Mi-26 at least they could move vehicles or towed weapons and their trucks and crews and some ammo.
we/they'll find out if those new designs r going to be faster or better performing after their prototypes r built & tested.
The purpose of designing high speed helos is to get helicopters that are faster than todays helos... it is not rocket science here... there is no reason to expect the new helos to not be faster than current models.
In comparison a conventional tandem helo wont be much faster than a conventional helo... one of the fastest conventional helicopters around is the Lynx with a conventional layout.
I meant that if a big coaxial 10-15-20T payload helo appears with just 2 main rotors 1 above the other, it will need to be a lot bigger, with fuselage larger & wider than CH-46/47 & even the CH-53.
Look at that picture... that helicopter is designed around making one main rotor centred a distance away from the other main rotor so the blades don't clash.
Take both main rotor blades off that helo and put them one on top of each other in the centre of gravity of that helo and you could shorten the helo design by 5-6m without effecting the internal volume of space because in that design the rear 5-6 metres is just empty tail area.
If you need internal volume you could make the cabin twice as wide... and one metre deeper.
they'll be on different levels, just like on CH-46/47- the front rotors lower than those in the back; so they won't need to much extra space between the front & the back rotors.
Rotor blades flex in operation... having the rear main rotor slightly higher than the front set is nothing to so with preventing blade collisions... there is a lift shadow with a tandem rotor layout and raising the rear set of blades moves them up into less turbulent airflows to allow them to keep their efficiency.
He claims that the mi-26 is too expensive to operate for lower payload (it.can make sense), as a bigger aircraft with part load will always be more expensive to operate than a smaller.aircraft (while still maintaining a considerable advantage in range).
That could apply to anything, I am sure the Chinook is terribly inefficient carrying around loads you could carry in a Ka-226... the point is that if you want a heavy lift helicopter... what is the max payload you need to shift.... you could say the Chinook can cope but then why not use Mi-26s half as often as you use the Chinooks and fill it up with two Chinook loads?
Having a large payload capacity margin is useful when operating from hot and high airstrips where engine power and performance can be seriously compromised.
The Mi-8 and Mi-17 worked well throughout Afghanistan, but there were places there where a Blackhawk couldn't take off even with a zero payload loadout... in other words even the crew was too much weight to take off...
And in addition, he says that the advantage of the mi-26 are only at sea level or low altitude, comparing the capabilities of the 2 helicopters with a mission up to 20000 feet (6100 m). From the info found online, this is above the service ceiling of the mi-26, so it is not a fair comparison. In addition, it is above the level of sustainable life, so, it would not be to drop people, but only to overtake a mountain.
A restriction for most helos...
Anyway, maybe the next upgrade of the mi-26 will have more use of.lightweight materials and better hot & high performance
Why?
The Indian purchase of the Chinook was political... they wanted to buy American influence and favour... just like the bought the Rafale fighter to buy the same French favour and influence...
The Mi-26 costs 25 million... the Chinook costs 40 million... as a general rule of thumb operational costs for aircraft are generally the original cost again over the life of the aircraft... so 50 million for the Russian helo and 80 million for the American one with half the payload capacity.
Certainly you need to buy to fit what you want to do... if they try using a 20 ton capacity vehicle for a 12 ton capacity job then it wont be economic... of course that is just a question of planning... have half the trips with almost double payloads and the solution is pretty clear, plus when you need the extra capacity it is available... but this purchase really wasn't about which helo is best...
The Indians don't want to repeat the mistake they made acquiring so many super expensive C-17s instead of more IL-76s & C-130Js.
Yeah, but they are... the new C-130s are expensive now too, and the Chinook costs rather more than the Mi-26s they rejected.
It was really about bad timing to be honest... when the Russians have new engines in production for their Mi-26s they will likely start making rather more for themselves and others, and Il-476 probably wont meet the needs of domestic demand for a few years yet, and obviously this new Russian/Chinese helo wont be flying for quite some time so like the C-17, the Chinook is their only choice unless they want to go super expensive with european helos... ouch...
The Chinook is cost effective. A tandem rotor design has significant other advantages over a single rotor design in the high mountains, especially on ridges. The economical fuel consumption of the Chinook versus the Mi-26 helps it get closer to the latter in terms of payload capacities.
Oh, please... Kamovs coaxial designs have been getting all the advantages of twin main rotor designs for decades too... they just don't need a piece of crap Chinook ripoff.
Their new highspeed designs will be coaxial designs to tandem concepts are pointless and redundant.
The Ka-102 will have 6 bladed rotors vs. 3 bladed rotors on the CH-47F; it'll be even more powerful & faster, & its specs will be similar & in payload better than tilt-rotor specs. An even bigger variant with increased payload is also possible. A naval tandem-rotor helo won't be used only above the water & near the shore.
Mi-26s have 8 bladed main rotors and the most powerful engines fitted to operational helos... and a Chinook equivalent tandem wont fit on any Russian ships...
Ka-102 looks basically a civilian project
It is wishful thinking is what it is... there is no military requirement for such an aircraft AFAIK.