Thread: Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark"???

The Ka-50 has a nice airframe and generally desireable characteristics in speed, maneuver, climb, lift capacity and stability in turbulence (elaboration: These guys were operating in mountainous areas. When you fly in narrow valleys or close to the walls of a valley you usually get a lot of wind from one side or the other trying to push you in every which direction. Conventional helis have a problem with this and try to stay away from the sides - we're talking major crash hazard. The coaxials aren't immune to this, but they are -much- better behaved)

The Ka-50s that were *operationally* tested had -no- IR and -no- RWR.
None whatsoever - it was quite simply not needed.

And yes, it can be re-equipped, and there are variants of the Ka-50 displaying a new sensor module intead of the old SHKVAL.

As I said before, just about every Ka-50 out there is in fact a test bed, with different hardware.

And no, the 'rest of it' isn't particularely advanced. The Navigation system is old, and has been supplemented with western avionics now (AMMS/ABRIS).
Likewise the autopilot is not 'fly by wire'.

you can keep pitching the R73 all you want, but it won't be used. It is a big, heavy missile that takes up precious AG ornance space and weight, and you're just -not- likely to use'em. At ebst you'll see an igla stack analogous to the Apache's stinger stack (which, by the way, the Apache does -not- get equipped with).

Right now the only AAM-carrying heli is the AH-1 on escort missions for extracting downed pilots or special ops teams, and its mission is -very clearly- destruction of enemy helis which may threaten the tranport heli or forces ont he ground. It carries two sidewinders plus AG ordnance.
But understand this: The Ah-1W/Z goes out to /find/ trouble specifically .. this is /very/ unique for a heli, VERY!

And its specifically against other helis that may pop in close undected - fighters and detected helis will be dealt with by CAP flights.

And don't forget, a heli's got nothing on an A2A fighter, or even a high-flying attack aircraft.

This is why you won't see R-73's on it, unless it is called on to fulfil a -very- special role, which is just plain unlikely.

The problem isn't mounting/using the weapons, the problem is mission tasking, and as much as the Ka-50 has been touted as some sort of 'interceptor', it has never been used this way, nor will it be, unless there's some unlikely conflict where there's helicopter-only battles and, even in those, historically,the weapons of choice had been the heli's AGMs.

So the question here is, why pay for a capability you won't use?

Also on upgrading the ka-50: The production version is to have aFLIR: http://www.aeronautics.ru/ka50n.jpg
This is the Ka-50N. Upgrading is -very- costly, wether you see a reason for it or not.
Something as stupid as adding a new missile tothe inventory can be shut down due to upgrade requirements t oensure the weapon is useable.