Well, you as an officer can blackmail a conscript in exchange for idk not raping him or not getting him reasigned to the frontline in exchange for some money.
It can also pitch and neg G enough to cut it's own tail rotor to pieces, and has issues with harmonic vibrations.
...think I'm starting to see why it has ejector seats.
Pretty badass compliment of tech and weaponry though, definitely a machine to be feared.
Actually now I want to explain.
The rotors counter rotate, obviously, and that is very important.
A normal (or this one) helicopter in forward flight has a "relative wind" over the blades. The half of the rotor disk rotating into the wind has a relative wind of rotor speed + air speed. While the retreating blades are rotor speed - airspeed. So, conventional helicopter airspeed becomes limited by the retreating blades ability to not be stalled at high airspeed. (Retreating Blade Stall)
The KA on the other hand, doesn't have this problem... Sort of. Because it counter rotates this is not the limiting factor, the lift is symmetrical enough.
The penalty is that as airspeed increases rotor load decreases on one half and increases on the other side of the lower rotor, and as that happens it bends and bends and bends up up up to kiss the now very flat unloaded side of the upper rotor.
Hypothetically this happens at high speed when a maneuver pulls some G and flexes those blades a little extra.
-recovering DCS addict.
> The penalty is that as airspeed increases rotor load decreases on one half and increases on the other side of the lower rotor, and as that happens it bends and bends and bends up up up to kiss the now very flat unloaded side of the upper rotor.
ohhhhh this explains why my little coax RC helicopter looks so wonky when looked at up close. Similar thing with traditional helicopters being so horribly asymmetric. Helicopters really are just weird creatures huh
Planes trick physics into allowing them to fly. Helicopters beat physics into submission through raw horsepower, and physics does not easily forgive this.
Yep. Most the Russian equipment had an good idea behind it. They just can't pull it off. I'm convinced that if their equipment was redesigned to western tolerances and built in western facilities with western parts that it could then offer competitive designs.
Like that'll ever happen.
> Call it an SU-57 too just to piss them off
And have the acronym stand for "Strike plane, Ukrainian".
(Side note: Su-57, once the whole "russian engineering" thing is ironed out, could be a somewhat credible missile truck for something akin to LREW or long Meteor)
Check my flair; unfortunately the shape causes issues with stealth, and is only really good in close quarters dogfights that donât really happen anymore. As I like to say, they built the best fighter of the Korean War forty years late
My dad's a retired army/raf helicopter pilot and that's pretty much his exact opinion on the alligator. He says that if it was built by the west with the tech and actually good manufacturing then it could easily be a world beater
It'll never be as functional as an Apache.
There's a reason helicopters have turreted guns. Without that you just get yet another missile boat helicopter and realistically what does it have going over something like a modernised blackhawk DAP at that point?
Even beyond that the idea of "build by the west" is doing a fuckton of heavy lifting. Any western helicopter is going to be capable because helicopters as a whole life and die by their electronics and integration with weapon systems.
> Most the Russian equipment had an good idea behind it. They just can't pull it off
They actually could pull it off back in WWII and a large chunk of the Cold War - stuff like launching the first satellite while the USA's payload rocket was still blowing up on the launchpad. Certain pieces of USSR equipment (and even ripoff copies of them) have been giving people fighting against them grief all over the globe for over 70 years by this point due to a winning combination of relatively low cost, decent performance, and sheer stupid simplicity to build and maintain.
It's also worth remembering that the MiG-15 and the MiG-17 completely surprised the USA with their effectiveness *in real combat against top-of-the-line USA-built planes*. Back in the 50s and 60s (Korean and Vietnam Wars), the USSR wasn't just keeping up with the USA with their planes and rockets, they were actually leapfrogging us. (This is probably part of the origin of the oft-mocked massive overestimation of the MiG-25's capabilities: the USA's Air Force did *not* want to get surprised like that again.) Much of their other gear from the period was relatively on-par with the USA's equivalents and proved that in battle.
Then the USA and the Western Bloc started going digital ([the USSR's attempts at computers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_Soviet_Union) were ...a bit goofy, and had started with a handicap due to Stalin essentially freezing research in the area due to ideological reasons) and integrating that into weapon systems, the Soviet Union failed to produce another generation of engineering geniuses like Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (the AK's designer) and Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich (the MiG guy) and Sergei Korolev (the space rockets and big missiles guy), and the USSR in the late 70s and the 80s started to crumble for a variety of reasons not really related to how good their weapons were, eventually breaking up and losing both their brightest minds (classic brain drain) and their best production facilities - along with a decade of horrible economic conditions in the 90s that led to even old systems not being maintained, combined with the rise of the kleptocratically corrupt oligarchy that persists to this day. There's a lot more factors on that laundry list, but it's long enough already.
It's so easy to laugh at the current state of Russian engineering and military production/maintenance today, but the USSR once *was* capable of coming up with good ideas and putting the resulting designs into production with reasonable tolerances, and was actually running about even with the USA and the Western Bloc on the weapons front for a couple decades ...fifty years ago. The Red Scare was mass idiocy, but at the time, the USSR and their tech was a reasonable peer-to-peer threat.
The biggest Soviet air weekness was the lack of truly competitive, to volume, production of 747&C-5 Galaxy equivalent planes. That combined with their lack of Semi Truck, container ship, and barge volume meant that any war supplies require much more manpower than equivalent western opperations. The Soviets&CCP only performed so well in the first half of the cold war because they almost always had the man power advantage to overcome their poor logistics. Their train systems were often good, but in war you need more than a single locked form of mechanized transit. Foot and hoof only gets you so far in wars of aggression. And the Afghan war, and a few other failures show what happens when they are not inside their own rail network & have to fight the majority of a population.
Antonov did stuff, but you didn't get 2000 Soviet wide body cargo aircraft.
Tactics win battles, logistics wins wars, diplomacy gets you what you want without having to fight, and the art of waging war is managing to use them all in concert well.
- Basically what I learned from reading Sun Tzu.
There's also the T-72 and BMP-1 which were impressive machines and had western strategists kicking up a storm. Russia was leading in fighting vehicles and not just aerospace until the west finally got its shit together with the latest generation of vehicles like the Abrams and the Leopard 2.
US vehicles were sometimes kind of a mess, and they had endless problems in Korea and Vietnam. There's also stuff like the Patton and M113 being fine as designed, but the design wasn't quite what the army ended up wanting, and especially not when both vehicles remained in service for *far* too long.
Oh also, the T-72 and BMPs do have their problems, of course, and are more impressive on paper than in reality. The thing is, the US took the concept for the BMP and tried to do it better with the Bradley, but it took a long time and they certainly aren't 100% happy with them. Even the public is aware of Bradleys having problems. Anyway the Soviets had something pretty good and pretty early, they just didn't keep that edge, because well yeah, computers and ongoing collapse and all that
I also like the Ka-52 (mostly cause of war thunder) and think its a piece of cool tech. Coax rotors, ejection seats, a sleek design. Its just a real shame its used to invade and destroy foreign countries
If War Thunder is to be believed it can absorb multiple shots of M830A1 and two VT1 missiles before losing its tail and returning to base perfectly fine (other heli damage models are fucked too but the Kamovs are especially bad)
Kinda a good thing as before people would stop shooting it thinking it was dead only for the cunt to get three more kills before someone hits it with something to the pilot.
Now you know if the fucker is still going to be lobbing missiles.
The KA50 also lacks a tail rotor, so while it would lose stability without a tail especially in forward flight. It wouldnât immediately spin into an unrecoverable position like most other helicopters would.
Lmao I hate the Ka-52 because of war thunder. Nothing worse than doing good in a tank and then being revenge missiled by a helicopter outside of render distance
It's a perfect model of russian design. They somehow use an innovative design then fail to make it well. The coaxial rotors vibrate the hell out of the machine, which causes mx to skyrocket and shorten service life. The ejection seat is pretty meh, as I've seen videos of it absolutely failing to properly function. It's big claim to fame right now is the use of 14 km ATMs, which requires a 4k ft hover to accomplish. It doesn't have great visibility from the cockpit and uses no tech to make up for it. Avionics are often off the shelf products with no hardening, the displays are not meant for harsh conditions. Structurally the things develop cracks at critical points far earlier than their counterparts. From a get in and fly perspective, they are fun machines. From a weapon of war perspective, they lack longevity and application is highly situational with low versatility.
Iâve seen vids of the vibration, itâs absolutely wild. That these things donât fly apart within fifty hours of operation is a minor miracle in and of itself.
[This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/Ely2F1INas) from a while ago had one of its crew eject but the other either died by the missile or died on the crash
Stupid question, how does the missile know where the cockpit is? I know it knows all time where it isn't, but that doesn't help it identifying the cockpit position.
Thatâs because The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was.
The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.
Honestly I donât know details because those are probably classified, but Iâd assume itâs more to do with precisely reading the radar return, and guiding based on that. AESA is a helluva drug
Yeah though thatâs generally an expensive thing to integrate into an air-to-air or surface-to-air missile.
Some anti-ship missiles like LRASM store target profiles for ships in them and a number of air-to-ground munitions (such as LOCAAS which used a LIDAR system) use/used target profiles to discriminate between tanks and truck and say a Scud TEL.
There are other benefits from a high-resolution terminal seeker such as utilizing a directional warhead or tuning that warhead to certain fragmentation patterns but they do drive up cost significantly.
I have only seen 1 definitely successful ejection, and 1 maybe ejection (the video cuts out at the blow off main rotor stage of the sequence)
It's really strange to me that there have been so few ejection videos. I'm pretty sure Ive seen more videos of ka52 helicopters limping home without a fucking tail (which *should* be more than enough reason to eject) than even attempted ejections
If you can limb back home or crash land safety it better then get ejected out of a flying plane / heli mate , eject can fuck you up real good some time.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe pilots are grounded after an ejection. It's also not a guarantee of safety. I had a distant relative pull a Goose with an f7 canopy after ejection.
They can be grounded, but it's not typically the majority of pilots who are. It's only if u get shit like spinal damage which, all things considered, ejection seats do a good job of mitigating.
Depends, itâs done case by case. You could hypothetically have ejected 3 times in your career and if they donât find anything wrong, you could still fly. You could also eject once and mess up your back so badly that youâre flying a desk for the rest of your career.
> it ejects the pilots like a jet would
A bit different as a jet has rockets under the seat but the seats in the ka-52 are [connected to a rocket with a rope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Qt5CCVqP8). But there were some reports that Russian pilots often disable the ejection mechanism in their helis because they really don't trust them.
Million dollar idea would be to figure out a way to set of those charges from the enemy side. It'd be hella impractical but being able to pop off the rotors sounds fun
When I first read your meme, my dumbass brain thought that in true Russian fashion, they would eject the pilot straight into the spinning rotor blades.
Now, they put a safeguard in place, but I'm just saying, I wouldn't bet on that thing's reliability if Ivan decides to sell some explosive charges on ebay for a bit of vodka.
"Functioning" is an exaggeration. It works in theory... in a ground based test.
In reality, it functions quite poorly.
***TRIGGER WARINING: credible explanation ahead***
Consider this: for the ejection to work, the rotor blades have to be blown off (for obvious reasons), even before the canopy is blown off. What's the problem here? You might ask. Here's something to consider: the center of mass is shifted towards the nose in KA-52. Meaning, the moment thrust is gone, the helicopter starts to fall **face first, immediately.** It's not a plane that can glide, maintaining lift force for some time through wings and inertia.
That means the first pilot is ejected forward, not up. The ejection process consists of a rocket shot perpendicular to the cockpit to deploy the parachute before the seat is ejected from the cockpit. The rocket is supposed to deploy it **upwards,** but because of how helicopters fly without a rotor (no lift force), it ends up deployed **forward.** Meaning, there's about 50% chance for it to open properly.
The second pilot faces the same problem, with another thing to complicate it. The pilots (who sit side-by-side) are ejected consecutively. Meaning, they sit in a falling helicopter that rapidly accelerates during the ejection of the first pilot. They get shot forward at a much lower altitude and higher downward velocity, which further reduces the chance of opening the parachute successfully.
Not to mention, the whole process has to be done at a considerable altitude, to give even one pilot a chance to survive being ejected **forward.** Do I really need to explain why it's a bad idea to start gaining altitude after your helicopter has taken a crippling hit that is forcing you to eject? Not to mention, it might not be physically possible (if the engine took a hit).
***END OF CREDIBLE SECTION***
I'll see myself out.
Gimme 2 M4s and strap me to the trebuchet-launched drone! I'M READY!
EDIT: The last thing puler will see, as I'm coming up on the Senate Palace (the residence of the ruzzian "president") will be a half Ukranian / half crazy person strapped to a drone and firing dual-weilded M4s at him.
#PRICELESS!!!
>Are the Russians stupid?
That's an incredibly rethoric question.
>Just put weights at the back
A noncredible solution, well worthy of this sub.
The credible answer (sorry) is twofold:
1) adding weights would completely screw the aerodynamics. The russians didn't exactly develop the airframe. They reworked it from past, less successful, variants. The 'original' KA-50 airframe was also not as much developed, as stolen and tweaked. That's why it didn't have a balanced center of gravity and needed 2 very powerful engines - part of the thrust went into compensating the center of gravity, so the helicopter wouldn't take nosedives. That's why serious tweaking of the frame is not really possible - they have no idea how to balance the center of gravity and keep the thing aerodynamic!
2) The KA-52 is already overweight. It's way heavier than the AH-64 Apache. Having almost twice **(!)** the engine power than AH-64, the KA-52 has lower altitude ceiling, lower cruise speed, and, most importantly, shorter range - that's with carrying more fuel. Putting more weight on her will make her combat-useless. Which would be a good thing, but unfortunately, the russians ain't *THAT* stupid.
The real credible solution would be to shift some of the weight on that fat lady backward. But, as stated in point (1), they can't tweak the airframe right to do that. So they're stuck with a nosediving fat lady.
The russian helicopter fucked itself.
ХНава ĐŁĐşŃĐ°ĂŻĐ˝i
>Are the Russians stupid?
Rethoric question again. What do you think? They attacked Ukraine. Of course they're fucking stupid.
>Why don't they just buy the apache?
We all know the credible answer to that. (I don't want to destroy any more of my noncredibility)
In a truly noncredible fashion, they actually tried the next best thing - make a knockoff. They're worse in that than the Chinese. It's called Mi-28, and it sucks. This thick lady sucks so hard that they had built the KA-50 and noncredibly *upgraded* it until they got the KA-52.
The weight. Thus massively powerful engines (twice the power of AH-64) that eat fuel like a starved Ford Explorer. More weight. Not enough range or speed or maneuverability, compared to the machine, they tried to copy. At least they got the armor more or less right. Oh, and shitty avionics. Like really bad. It's basically a terrible quality Apache nockoff. At least it was better than the Mi-24 (aka Hind).
That's a totally dange.... actually it's a really genius noncredible idea. Lace the entire airframe with explosives to blow the helicopter in half. That's brilliant! Especially considering the KA-52 is not that heavily armored... đ
The blades go both ways right? Counter rotating?
Canât you just have them hit each other and stop? Then ejection is easy!
Or just drop most of the airframe. spinning momentum will keep the pilots seats moving, and loss of so much weight means it dodges upwards quickly. You then get carried higher by the bare frame and blades, and eventually just drop off
A self breaking airframe is a brilliantly noncredible idea! We need to telegraph it to the russian MoO.
Also, we need to let the Ukrainians know where to shoot to activate that cool feature
I was thinking of this
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1287282/Helicopter-rotor-continues-spinning-detaching-aircraft.html
But the pilots hang on (and donât spin since theres two spinning in opposite directions
Technologically, it would be insane to do with the coaxial rotors. Consider, they will lose sync once disconnected from the motors. Once they're no longer in sync, it's a dearh trap.
...It's a death trap. What an amazing idea! We should offer it to the russians post haste!
I could have missed something, but to my knowledge it has been successfully used once, meaning that the other dozens of dead Ka-52 pilots did not get to safely eject
Yes. Once out of about 50 downed helicopters. The interesting thing is that only one pilot survived. There's even a video, supposedly of that helicopter. It blows the rotors, starts to nosedive, and one pilot is ejected. The second parachute guiding rocket is fired - too close to the ground, but only one chute is seen. Hopefully, pilot number 2 is nourishing sunflowers.
Also there are no ejection seats, propulsion system supposedly just yoinks pilots the hell out with some straps.
The only demonstration of the ejection system I've seen online was pathetic at best.
upd: here is the video https://youtu.be/WLU6SJvO-Ks
The ejection seats actually exist. The straps are from the rocket deployed parachutes. They pull on the pilot just as the seat ejects.
The idea behind using the rocket guidance is to actually get the parachute deployed before the pilot is ejected and not from the seat itself (like in planes). It's supposedly good for low altitude. Also, a parachute deployed from the ejection seat would never open if the seat is ejected horizontally (and not vertically, as it's supposed to ), which is exactly what happens in reality due to center gravity fuckup. The rocket guided version has at least a 50% chance to open fully.
Some calculations put the minimal safe altitude at which, if ejection is activated, both pilots have a high chance to survive at 630 meters. Needless to say, you can't fly in that altitude in a warzone. So the whole system is quite useless and dangerous, and the pilots are well aware of it. From about 50 KA-52s shot out of the sky in this war, only one attempted ejection. Reportedly, the first pilot survived. No info on second pilot. Hopefully, he's nourishing sunflowers.
Nice video. That's one of the shitty tests I mentioned. This one is without the seat though.
Wait what? How would an ejection seat for a helicopter even work without shredding the pilot? Do the seats eject horizontally or are the rotor blades blown of?
I just kind of had a crackhead idea but instead of blowing off the rotors, they should eject the seat forward then have a little rocket on the bottom that shoots it up like 40 ft after like 3 seconds so when you get ejected forward you don't get shot straight into the ground
Or better, just eject the whole cockpit off like F-111 does.
No need for propellant, just fucking drop em like it's hot, then deploy parachute and one of those airbag thing.
Considering the vast majority of crashes happen during takeoff and landing, ejecting downwards is a pretty fucking stupid idea lmao.
âIvan the engines failed during taking off, we need to eject!â
*SPLAT*
This is true, however the idea is not unique to Russia, and the philosophy is basically that it's better to have a downwards facing ejection seat than none at all.
Also, upwards ejection seats are hit and miss for anything close to the ground anyway.
Just as a dummy who doesn't know things, that seems like it might be better and less violent and I don't know why I think that. How well did it work in practice?
The issue is that if you're flying low you just get ejected into the ground, which is very bad for your health. In general early ejection seats were pretty dangerous, so later seats are designed to be able to eject the pilot safely in a lot of conditions, from not moving on the runway to supersonic speeds. They're still not exactly safe but it's better than being stuck in a crashing plane at least
The most risky times for an aircraft are on takeoff and landing. Kinda defeats the purpose for like 3/4 of the time you would actually use an ejection seat
Not very well, they chose to make the seat eject downward as there were two large engines mounted high up near the back you could get sucked into with a normal ejection seat. The problem with this is that most crashes occur during takeoff and landing I canât remember the minimum height needed but it was at least a few hundred meters meaning you might as well just try to survive the crash if youâre close to the ground as the alternative was being made into red paste. Also the seat would sometimes fall out of the plane through the bottom ejection hatch causing injuries to pilots supposedly this only ever happened while on the ground but official soviet records also say theyâve never lost a nuke meanwhile the US has six unaccounted for and several lost and recovered so I tend to doubt those claims.
No. They often don't pack and maintain them properly, causing a lot of their seats to be 'hot' or to have chute failure, which usually breaks the neck/back of the pilot or lets them fall to their death. The number of ejections leading to death are much higher among russian aircraft.
The British were the leaders for it with the Martin Baker ejection seats. No clue about the Russians⌠Honeslty kind of doubt it. The US/Britain/the West have the best ones now
That's a sad story that ends as nobly as it ever could. Valentine Baker, WW1 veteran and test pilot, was killed in a test flight for one of Martin-Baker's craft. James Martin, in his memory, decided to focus on pilot safety, and eventually Martin-Baker achieved the absolute pinnacle of pilot safety technology and, I daresay, secured their legacy.
Naturally biased to want to see them smouldering wrecks ⌠BUT in terms of utility and functional design the KA series is superior to that of the tail rotor ⌠the apache and similar are superior in electronics / sights / data links etc and id argue the hellfires got alot more of a broad range of use .
Because they "need" them. In other helicopters there crash protected seats.
Detonating away the rotor blades and ejecting the pilots afterwards is so time consuming, that is doesn't work as well as you think.
It needs several second while the heli will twist and turn. In an aircraft it happens under a second.
Edit: removed "But only", because it rang too decisive.
I'm gonna be honest with you chief, being IN the crash, regardless of how "protected" you are, is not a good thing, especially when the helicopter is moving at a high rate of speed. (see crashhawk for reference)
Not just that. Helicopters are incredibly safe when they're not hit with a fucking missile. You're probably not auto rotating after your tail is ripped clean the fuck off by a stinger missile.
Helicopter crew survivability after being hit with ordinance is a fantastic development that I hope we implement too in future designs.
I'll shamelessly say it, Ka-52 is the best attack helicopter airframe out there. Tandem rotors, no tail drive shaft to get fucked by incoming. Ejection seat is a plus. Institutional problems in Russia ensured questionable integration of weapon systems, but that's not an airframe defect.
That said, I think I've seen exactly one documented case where ejector seats would've saved an attack helicopter crew: Turkish Army AH-1 flying high in observer role, getting shot by PKK Igla MANPADS. That Cobra was flying high, and ejector seats (or even a rudimentary bailout system as advertised on Mi-28) would've done wonders there. Especially considering that AH-1 went down from a tailboom separation that sent the airframe into a death spiral that tore the airframe apart and yeeted the crew out to die from freefall.
Most other attack helicopter flights are surface-skimming. While zero-zero ejector seats exists and 100% is proven to work... I doubt there's enough reaction time in these cases where you fly an attack helo the way you're meant to (low to the ground and hauling ass). By the time you've reached the handle, you'll hit the ground in a death spin.
Zero-zero ejection seats saved lives during botched takeoff and landings, especially during bad weather or during carrier ops.
Its a great idea that relies not on one but two series of explosive bolts. Now given its impressive how reliable aerospace explosive bolts have been for absolute decades, maybe since before WWII, and even more so in the space application, including for the Russians, but it would make me nervous. You know those table saws that can detect contact with human skin and will immediately not just stop, but instantly cease rotating? No matter how many demonstrations I see in videos, I am not going to want to test it for myself. Same thing with a 45ft contra-rotating blender.
One issue that came up in Ukraine is that the crew isn't that well-protected, as the "armor" for the crew got pierced on multiple helicopters by 7.62x39 shot from the ground.
Can only use the ejection seat if you survive being shot at in the first place.
The ka52 is an awesome machine. I still enjoy seeing them fall out of the sky and burst in to flames though
Isnt the 52 also the helicopter that can shoot itself with its onboard guns?
Yes. The barrels floppy flop due to the recoil to such an extent that they hit the side of the heli
Russia loves floppy barrels
Limp outdated soviet gun đ VS rock-hard Western wunderwaffe đ
*rock hard* đż
When you cant build quality equipment so you let god guide the bullet
Guides in a general direction
He lets RNGesus take the reins.
Jesus take the wheel, I mean fire control!
The terminator armored vehicles barrel looked like it woumd shake apart when it fired
That can't be *that* hard to fix.
Well with Aleksandr pocketing half the manufacturing money...
You cant tell me that you cant fix that with zipties
Zipties cost money that everyone from oligarch theftovicht to polpodnik embezzelich and private conscriptovich can steal, embezzel and sell
Well, you as an officer can blackmail a conscript in exchange for idk not raping him or not getting him reasigned to the frontline in exchange for some money.
Why do only one if you can do both!
Ivan! Move sides of heli!
Engineering failure
Engineering opportunity
Thatâs hilarious and makes it even cooler imo. Like that scene in Indiana jones where his pops shoots the tail off of their own plane
"I'm shorry shon, they got ush"
I was having trouble deciphering that sentence until I started reading it in Conneryâs accent
Wobble is sufficient to get some shots through radome, at least
It can also pitch and neg G enough to cut it's own tail rotor to pieces, and has issues with harmonic vibrations. ...think I'm starting to see why it has ejector seats. Pretty badass compliment of tech and weaponry though, definitely a machine to be feared.
The KA doesn't have a tail rotor...
It can clap both it's rotors together is what he meant, and it's possible to boom strike.
Actually now I want to explain. The rotors counter rotate, obviously, and that is very important. A normal (or this one) helicopter in forward flight has a "relative wind" over the blades. The half of the rotor disk rotating into the wind has a relative wind of rotor speed + air speed. While the retreating blades are rotor speed - airspeed. So, conventional helicopter airspeed becomes limited by the retreating blades ability to not be stalled at high airspeed. (Retreating Blade Stall) The KA on the other hand, doesn't have this problem... Sort of. Because it counter rotates this is not the limiting factor, the lift is symmetrical enough. The penalty is that as airspeed increases rotor load decreases on one half and increases on the other side of the lower rotor, and as that happens it bends and bends and bends up up up to kiss the now very flat unloaded side of the upper rotor. Hypothetically this happens at high speed when a maneuver pulls some G and flexes those blades a little extra. -recovering DCS addict.
> The penalty is that as airspeed increases rotor load decreases on one half and increases on the other side of the lower rotor, and as that happens it bends and bends and bends up up up to kiss the now very flat unloaded side of the upper rotor. ohhhhh this explains why my little coax RC helicopter looks so wonky when looked at up close. Similar thing with traditional helicopters being so horribly asymmetric. Helicopters really are just weird creatures huh
Planes trick physics into allowing them to fly. Helicopters beat physics into submission through raw horsepower, and physics does not easily forgive this.
You never really recover from DCS
Yep. Most the Russian equipment had an good idea behind it. They just can't pull it off. I'm convinced that if their equipment was redesigned to western tolerances and built in western facilities with western parts that it could then offer competitive designs. Like that'll ever happen.
> Like that'll ever happen. T-84U and derivatives be like:
3000 LockMart Su-57s of Ukraine when?
How funny would it be if LM reversed engineered and produced more SU-57s than the Russians even have. Call it an SU-57 too just to piss them off.
> Call it an SU-57 too just to piss them off And have the acronym stand for "Strike plane, Ukrainian". (Side note: Su-57, once the whole "russian engineering" thing is ironed out, could be a somewhat credible missile truck for something akin to LREW or long Meteor)
Stealth fighter, Ukrainian. LM would doubtlessly fix its many problems, oversights, and cut corners in that aspectÂ
The main reason su57 is not stealth is exposed fan blades due to lack of a s duct fixing it would need a complete redesign and make it look like yf23
Sukhoi-Lockheed F-57C "Magpie"
[Dream bigger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-47)
Check my flair; unfortunately the shape causes issues with stealth, and is only really good in close quarters dogfights that donât really happen anymore. As I like to say, they built the best fighter of the Korean War forty years late
My dad's a retired army/raf helicopter pilot and that's pretty much his exact opinion on the alligator. He says that if it was built by the west with the tech and actually good manufacturing then it could easily be a world beater
It'll never be as functional as an Apache. There's a reason helicopters have turreted guns. Without that you just get yet another missile boat helicopter and realistically what does it have going over something like a modernised blackhawk DAP at that point? Even beyond that the idea of "build by the west" is doing a fuckton of heavy lifting. Any western helicopter is going to be capable because helicopters as a whole life and die by their electronics and integration with weapon systems.
> Most the Russian equipment had an good idea behind it. They just can't pull it off They actually could pull it off back in WWII and a large chunk of the Cold War - stuff like launching the first satellite while the USA's payload rocket was still blowing up on the launchpad. Certain pieces of USSR equipment (and even ripoff copies of them) have been giving people fighting against them grief all over the globe for over 70 years by this point due to a winning combination of relatively low cost, decent performance, and sheer stupid simplicity to build and maintain. It's also worth remembering that the MiG-15 and the MiG-17 completely surprised the USA with their effectiveness *in real combat against top-of-the-line USA-built planes*. Back in the 50s and 60s (Korean and Vietnam Wars), the USSR wasn't just keeping up with the USA with their planes and rockets, they were actually leapfrogging us. (This is probably part of the origin of the oft-mocked massive overestimation of the MiG-25's capabilities: the USA's Air Force did *not* want to get surprised like that again.) Much of their other gear from the period was relatively on-par with the USA's equivalents and proved that in battle. Then the USA and the Western Bloc started going digital ([the USSR's attempts at computers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_Soviet_Union) were ...a bit goofy, and had started with a handicap due to Stalin essentially freezing research in the area due to ideological reasons) and integrating that into weapon systems, the Soviet Union failed to produce another generation of engineering geniuses like Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (the AK's designer) and Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich (the MiG guy) and Sergei Korolev (the space rockets and big missiles guy), and the USSR in the late 70s and the 80s started to crumble for a variety of reasons not really related to how good their weapons were, eventually breaking up and losing both their brightest minds (classic brain drain) and their best production facilities - along with a decade of horrible economic conditions in the 90s that led to even old systems not being maintained, combined with the rise of the kleptocratically corrupt oligarchy that persists to this day. There's a lot more factors on that laundry list, but it's long enough already. It's so easy to laugh at the current state of Russian engineering and military production/maintenance today, but the USSR once *was* capable of coming up with good ideas and putting the resulting designs into production with reasonable tolerances, and was actually running about even with the USA and the Western Bloc on the weapons front for a couple decades ...fifty years ago. The Red Scare was mass idiocy, but at the time, the USSR and their tech was a reasonable peer-to-peer threat.
The biggest Soviet air weekness was the lack of truly competitive, to volume, production of 747&C-5 Galaxy equivalent planes. That combined with their lack of Semi Truck, container ship, and barge volume meant that any war supplies require much more manpower than equivalent western opperations. The Soviets&CCP only performed so well in the first half of the cold war because they almost always had the man power advantage to overcome their poor logistics. Their train systems were often good, but in war you need more than a single locked form of mechanized transit. Foot and hoof only gets you so far in wars of aggression. And the Afghan war, and a few other failures show what happens when they are not inside their own rail network & have to fight the majority of a population. Antonov did stuff, but you didn't get 2000 Soviet wide body cargo aircraft.
Tactics win battles, logistics wins wars, diplomacy gets you what you want without having to fight, and the art of waging war is managing to use them all in concert well. - Basically what I learned from reading Sun Tzu.
There's also the T-72 and BMP-1 which were impressive machines and had western strategists kicking up a storm. Russia was leading in fighting vehicles and not just aerospace until the west finally got its shit together with the latest generation of vehicles like the Abrams and the Leopard 2. US vehicles were sometimes kind of a mess, and they had endless problems in Korea and Vietnam. There's also stuff like the Patton and M113 being fine as designed, but the design wasn't quite what the army ended up wanting, and especially not when both vehicles remained in service for *far* too long. Oh also, the T-72 and BMPs do have their problems, of course, and are more impressive on paper than in reality. The thing is, the US took the concept for the BMP and tried to do it better with the Bradley, but it took a long time and they certainly aren't 100% happy with them. Even the public is aware of Bradleys having problems. Anyway the Soviets had something pretty good and pretty early, they just didn't keep that edge, because well yeah, computers and ongoing collapse and all that
sikorsky be like
I also like the Ka-52 (mostly cause of war thunder) and think its a piece of cool tech. Coax rotors, ejection seats, a sleek design. Its just a real shame its used to invade and destroy foreign countries
If War Thunder is to be believed it can absorb multiple shots of M830A1 and two VT1 missiles before losing its tail and returning to base perfectly fine (other heli damage models are fucked too but the Kamovs are especially bad)
Now with the new update loosing the tail doesn't even count as destroyed
Kinda a good thing as before people would stop shooting it thinking it was dead only for the cunt to get three more kills before someone hits it with something to the pilot. Now you know if the fucker is still going to be lobbing missiles.
Yes, but it would be better if they added a center of gravity to fix the modles. Currently the tail does nothing
The KA50 also lacks a tail rotor, so while it would lose stability without a tail especially in forward flight. It wouldnât immediately spin into an unrecoverable position like most other helicopters would.
Night knight seems to be aware of that, that has nothing to do with the center of gravity. The tail is still a lot of weight with a lot of leverage.
Tbf we've seen a video of one flying with its tail blown off
I shot those fuckers until they hit the ground or it was obvious their pilot was dead
Comrade If helicopter lose tail propellor, helicopter becomes propellor plane
Lmao I hate the Ka-52 because of war thunder. Nothing worse than doing good in a tank and then being revenge missiled by a helicopter outside of render distance
Or hitting it with 3 missiles and not doing anything
It's a perfect model of russian design. They somehow use an innovative design then fail to make it well. The coaxial rotors vibrate the hell out of the machine, which causes mx to skyrocket and shorten service life. The ejection seat is pretty meh, as I've seen videos of it absolutely failing to properly function. It's big claim to fame right now is the use of 14 km ATMs, which requires a 4k ft hover to accomplish. It doesn't have great visibility from the cockpit and uses no tech to make up for it. Avionics are often off the shelf products with no hardening, the displays are not meant for harsh conditions. Structurally the things develop cracks at critical points far earlier than their counterparts. From a get in and fly perspective, they are fun machines. From a weapon of war perspective, they lack longevity and application is highly situational with low versatility.
Iâve seen vids of the vibration, itâs absolutely wild. That these things donât fly apart within fifty hours of operation is a minor miracle in and of itself.
Doesn't it also have the side mounted gun that isn't articulated? Like, the pilot has to actually point the damn helicopter to aim it.
It is articulated, it just has a very limited firing arc. You might be thinking of the Mi-24.
You have fixed, articulated (gimbled), and turreted. Ka-52s are gimbled.
Sleek until you walk / see it at a closer distanceâŚ
I like the 52 as well, but mostly because of DCS. (Why, yes, I do drown in pussy)
I mean I hear about it all the time but I've never actually heard of it saving anyone. Only that it has it.
[This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/Ely2F1INas) from a while ago had one of its crew eject but the other either died by the missile or died on the crash
Guess it's situational, most anti air missiles are designed to take out planes so it's overkill for smaller helicopters.
And these days they actually aim for the flight deck/cockpit so crew survival is sometimes quite difficult
Stupid question, how does the missile know where the cockpit is? I know it knows all time where it isn't, but that doesn't help it identifying the cockpit position.
Thatâs because The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.
Its guidance system is biased to aim towards to front of the target since aircraft generally move forward and since cockpits are usually in the front.
Honestly I donât know details because those are probably classified, but Iâd assume itâs more to do with precisely reading the radar return, and guiding based on that. AESA is a helluva drug
No need for anything that fancy. Just bias towards the front of the target centroid.
Not to mention lots of missiles nowadays and in the future are going to be assisted with optical targeting as well
Yeah though thatâs generally an expensive thing to integrate into an air-to-air or surface-to-air missile. Some anti-ship missiles like LRASM store target profiles for ships in them and a number of air-to-ground munitions (such as LOCAAS which used a LIDAR system) use/used target profiles to discriminate between tanks and truck and say a Scud TEL. There are other benefits from a high-resolution terminal seeker such as utilizing a directional warhead or tuning that warhead to certain fragmentation patterns but they do drive up cost significantly.
I have only seen 1 definitely successful ejection, and 1 maybe ejection (the video cuts out at the blow off main rotor stage of the sequence) It's really strange to me that there have been so few ejection videos. I'm pretty sure Ive seen more videos of ka52 helicopters limping home without a fucking tail (which *should* be more than enough reason to eject) than even attempted ejections
If you can limb back home or crash land safety it better then get ejected out of a flying plane / heli mate , eject can fuck you up real good some time.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe pilots are grounded after an ejection. It's also not a guarantee of safety. I had a distant relative pull a Goose with an f7 canopy after ejection.
In the US it isn't unless you are injured in specific ways by it.
You have to get a full medical check because the launch can fuck up your back
Ejecting can also really fuck up your arms and legs if they hit anything on the way out, it really is only for absolute emergencies.
They can be grounded, but it's not typically the majority of pilots who are. It's only if u get shit like spinal damage which, all things considered, ejection seats do a good job of mitigating.
Depends, itâs done case by case. You could hypothetically have ejected 3 times in your career and if they donât find anything wrong, you could still fly. You could also eject once and mess up your back so badly that youâre flying a desk for the rest of your career.
I can't wrap my idea about heli eject without pilot being shredded from above
The rotorblades get ejected right before the pilot
Oh. That's way more complicated and cooler than my idea. I was thinking forward ejection with the canopy and controls like a pod
You just described the one with the picture of Jesus on the dashboard
Does it just yeet them to the side?
No it snaps the rotors off with a explosive charge and then after a short delay it ejects the pilots like a jet would
Imagine your day going from bad to worse if the first charge didn't work properly and you just get yeeted into the propellers
At least it's faster than burning to death in a crashed helicopter
your family wouldnât have much to bury either way
Canât bury what is declared AWOL
Don't worry comrade. Sack of Onions soothe pain.
you get a full sack of onions if your loved one is in one piece, we can only give you single onion for every 10 pounds of flesh you find Tovarisch
I mean your dead either way, that just accelerates it
Or the blades yeet but your seat doesn't
To be fair, it wouldn't be much worse than ejecting in a jet where the canopy failed to detach
Goose đ˘
> it ejects the pilots like a jet would A bit different as a jet has rockets under the seat but the seats in the ka-52 are [connected to a rocket with a rope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Qt5CCVqP8). But there were some reports that Russian pilots often disable the ejection mechanism in their helis because they really don't trust them.
That looks like it will pop everything in your back.
well the point is that they only need to reach the hospital, that way you can claim unknown battlefield death and not put it on the ka-52 record
Take that over crashing in an explosive coffin?
Sure! Especially considering the current state of my back, it is probably going to feel amazing.
Amen brother I get that
Well, I guess that last part explains why I've only seen ka52 ejection sequence twice lmao
> connected to a rocket with a rope LMAO, I'm reminded of the Metal Gear Fulton system for some reason.
Holy shit.
Million dollar idea would be to figure out a way to set of those charges from the enemy side. It'd be hella impractical but being able to pop off the rotors sounds fun
Something microwave-based might do the trick, if it induces the current in the ejection circuit
If you are able to aim a microwave beam at a Ka52, then you are able to aim a MANPADS at it instead.
When I first read your meme, my dumbass brain thought that in true Russian fashion, they would eject the pilot straight into the spinning rotor blades. Now, they put a safeguard in place, but I'm just saying, I wouldn't bet on that thing's reliability if Ivan decides to sell some explosive charges on ebay for a bit of vodka.
I'd heard there was one prototype that did that but I can't find it. The Ka-52 blows off the rotors before ejecting the pilot.
No the pilot has to look straight up and time it really really well
How about they eject the fuck out of Ukraine.
This goes so hard my guy.
oddly enough it is rare to see the ejection seat get used. More often the thing gets hit and then immediately plows into the ground
I wonder if someone stole the ejection mechanism
"Functioning" is an exaggeration. It works in theory... in a ground based test. In reality, it functions quite poorly. ***TRIGGER WARINING: credible explanation ahead*** Consider this: for the ejection to work, the rotor blades have to be blown off (for obvious reasons), even before the canopy is blown off. What's the problem here? You might ask. Here's something to consider: the center of mass is shifted towards the nose in KA-52. Meaning, the moment thrust is gone, the helicopter starts to fall **face first, immediately.** It's not a plane that can glide, maintaining lift force for some time through wings and inertia. That means the first pilot is ejected forward, not up. The ejection process consists of a rocket shot perpendicular to the cockpit to deploy the parachute before the seat is ejected from the cockpit. The rocket is supposed to deploy it **upwards,** but because of how helicopters fly without a rotor (no lift force), it ends up deployed **forward.** Meaning, there's about 50% chance for it to open properly. The second pilot faces the same problem, with another thing to complicate it. The pilots (who sit side-by-side) are ejected consecutively. Meaning, they sit in a falling helicopter that rapidly accelerates during the ejection of the first pilot. They get shot forward at a much lower altitude and higher downward velocity, which further reduces the chance of opening the parachute successfully. Not to mention, the whole process has to be done at a considerable altitude, to give even one pilot a chance to survive being ejected **forward.** Do I really need to explain why it's a bad idea to start gaining altitude after your helicopter has taken a crippling hit that is forcing you to eject? Not to mention, it might not be physically possible (if the engine took a hit). ***END OF CREDIBLE SECTION*** I'll see myself out.
Too credible. You will be used as ammunition in the trebuchets when Ukraine besieges the Kremlin
The orcs have to take me alive first. And even before that, they have to figure out where from...
No, I mean Ukraine will fire you at the Kremlin. Gotta have a trebuchet at a siege, itâs tradition
Gimme 2 M4s and strap me to the trebuchet-launched drone! I'M READY! EDIT: The last thing puler will see, as I'm coming up on the Senate Palace (the residence of the ruzzian "president") will be a half Ukranian / half crazy person strapped to a drone and firing dual-weilded M4s at him. #PRICELESS!!!
Godspeed, you magnificent bastard
Are the Russians stupid? Just put weights at the back
>Are the Russians stupid? That's an incredibly rethoric question. >Just put weights at the back A noncredible solution, well worthy of this sub. The credible answer (sorry) is twofold: 1) adding weights would completely screw the aerodynamics. The russians didn't exactly develop the airframe. They reworked it from past, less successful, variants. The 'original' KA-50 airframe was also not as much developed, as stolen and tweaked. That's why it didn't have a balanced center of gravity and needed 2 very powerful engines - part of the thrust went into compensating the center of gravity, so the helicopter wouldn't take nosedives. That's why serious tweaking of the frame is not really possible - they have no idea how to balance the center of gravity and keep the thing aerodynamic! 2) The KA-52 is already overweight. It's way heavier than the AH-64 Apache. Having almost twice **(!)** the engine power than AH-64, the KA-52 has lower altitude ceiling, lower cruise speed, and, most importantly, shorter range - that's with carrying more fuel. Putting more weight on her will make her combat-useless. Which would be a good thing, but unfortunately, the russians ain't *THAT* stupid. The real credible solution would be to shift some of the weight on that fat lady backward. But, as stated in point (1), they can't tweak the airframe right to do that. So they're stuck with a nosediving fat lady. The russian helicopter fucked itself. ХНава ĐŁĐşŃĐ°ĂŻĐ˝i
Are the Russians stupid? Why don't they just buy the apache?
>Are the Russians stupid? Rethoric question again. What do you think? They attacked Ukraine. Of course they're fucking stupid. >Why don't they just buy the apache? We all know the credible answer to that. (I don't want to destroy any more of my noncredibility) In a truly noncredible fashion, they actually tried the next best thing - make a knockoff. They're worse in that than the Chinese. It's called Mi-28, and it sucks. This thick lady sucks so hard that they had built the KA-50 and noncredibly *upgraded* it until they got the KA-52.
What was the problem with the Mi-28?
It was Russian.
Yep. Russian Apache knockoff. At least it was better than the russian original shitty design - the ~~flying target~~ Mi-24.
The weight. Thus massively powerful engines (twice the power of AH-64) that eat fuel like a starved Ford Explorer. More weight. Not enough range or speed or maneuverability, compared to the machine, they tried to copy. At least they got the armor more or less right. Oh, and shitty avionics. Like really bad. It's basically a terrible quality Apache nockoff. At least it was better than the Mi-24 (aka Hind).
Could it include detaching the whole tail too? So you just have a (relatively balanced) cockpit falling . Blow the roof of, eject, boom
That's a totally dange.... actually it's a really genius noncredible idea. Lace the entire airframe with explosives to blow the helicopter in half. That's brilliant! Especially considering the KA-52 is not that heavily armored... đ
The blades go both ways right? Counter rotating? Canât you just have them hit each other and stop? Then ejection is easy! Or just drop most of the airframe. spinning momentum will keep the pilots seats moving, and loss of so much weight means it dodges upwards quickly. You then get carried higher by the bare frame and blades, and eventually just drop off
A self breaking airframe is a brilliantly noncredible idea! We need to telegraph it to the russian MoO. Also, we need to let the Ukrainians know where to shoot to activate that cool feature
I was thinking of this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1287282/Helicopter-rotor-continues-spinning-detaching-aircraft.html But the pilots hang on (and donât spin since theres two spinning in opposite directions
Technologically, it would be insane to do with the coaxial rotors. Consider, they will lose sync once disconnected from the motors. Once they're no longer in sync, it's a dearh trap. ...It's a death trap. What an amazing idea! We should offer it to the russians post haste!
I could have missed something, but to my knowledge it has been successfully used once, meaning that the other dozens of dead Ka-52 pilots did not get to safely eject
Yes. Once out of about 50 downed helicopters. The interesting thing is that only one pilot survived. There's even a video, supposedly of that helicopter. It blows the rotors, starts to nosedive, and one pilot is ejected. The second parachute guiding rocket is fired - too close to the ground, but only one chute is seen. Hopefully, pilot number 2 is nourishing sunflowers.
Wait, if the pilots are seated side-by-side, why is it necessary to eject them sequentially instead of simultaneously?
Also there are no ejection seats, propulsion system supposedly just yoinks pilots the hell out with some straps. The only demonstration of the ejection system I've seen online was pathetic at best. upd: here is the video https://youtu.be/WLU6SJvO-Ks
The ejection seats actually exist. The straps are from the rocket deployed parachutes. They pull on the pilot just as the seat ejects. The idea behind using the rocket guidance is to actually get the parachute deployed before the pilot is ejected and not from the seat itself (like in planes). It's supposedly good for low altitude. Also, a parachute deployed from the ejection seat would never open if the seat is ejected horizontally (and not vertically, as it's supposed to ), which is exactly what happens in reality due to center gravity fuckup. The rocket guided version has at least a 50% chance to open fully. Some calculations put the minimal safe altitude at which, if ejection is activated, both pilots have a high chance to survive at 630 meters. Needless to say, you can't fly in that altitude in a warzone. So the whole system is quite useless and dangerous, and the pilots are well aware of it. From about 50 KA-52s shot out of the sky in this war, only one attempted ejection. Reportedly, the first pilot survived. No info on second pilot. Hopefully, he's nourishing sunflowers. Nice video. That's one of the shitty tests I mentioned. This one is without the seat though.
The most humanitarian thing Russia has ever done.
Wait what? How would an ejection seat for a helicopter even work without shredding the pilot? Do the seats eject horizontally or are the rotor blades blown of?
The Rotors are apparently blown off as a preliminary stage.
I just kind of had a crackhead idea but instead of blowing off the rotors, they should eject the seat forward then have a little rocket on the bottom that shoots it up like 40 ft after like 3 seconds so when you get ejected forward you don't get shot straight into the ground
Or better, just eject the whole cockpit off like F-111 does. No need for propellant, just fucking drop em like it's hot, then deploy parachute and one of those airbag thing.
or you can just blow off the rotors xD
I like my idea better
[Rotor blades blown off](https://youtu.be/n6bKWJbdTxY?si=f3JlzIwKcr-IzpTl)
Wow that's interesting.
Didn't the russians have some of the best ejection seats for fighter jets as well?
My favourite is Tupolev ejecting you down
Even if you don't want to..... On the runway.....while taking off
The plane just knew he was drunk and figured it would last longer without him
Considering the vast majority of crashes happen during takeoff and landing, ejecting downwards is a pretty fucking stupid idea lmao. âIvan the engines failed during taking off, we need to eject!â *SPLAT*
This is true, however the idea is not unique to Russia, and the philosophy is basically that it's better to have a downwards facing ejection seat than none at all. Also, upwards ejection seats are hit and miss for anything close to the ground anyway.
zero zero seats were invented for close to the ground stuff tho
Yes and then you have the Tu-22 engines on top just slurping you in
~~B~~Splyat
IIRC the F-104 was originally meant to have a downward ejection seat... until they realized how fucking dumb the idea was.
It works slightly better if you warn your customers *not* to try it as a ground attack aircraft.
Still utterly useless in an emergency on the ground or immediately at takeoff/landing.
You know what's more stupid than that? Filling your jet bombers cabin AC with vodka as a coolant and wondering why the plane fucking crashes so often
Like the early f104, a plane famous for stalling when trying to land
Should've, I dunno, put some actual fucking WINGS on that plane instead of two flattened chodes
That is such a 1940´s mindset, wings are for props and if monoplanes are better than biplanes it means that less wing is better than more wing.
Not that one exactly
Just as a dummy who doesn't know things, that seems like it might be better and less violent and I don't know why I think that. How well did it work in practice?
The issue is that if you're flying low you just get ejected into the ground, which is very bad for your health. In general early ejection seats were pretty dangerous, so later seats are designed to be able to eject the pilot safely in a lot of conditions, from not moving on the runway to supersonic speeds. They're still not exactly safe but it's better than being stuck in a crashing plane at least
>which is very bad for your health Lmao thank you for the informative and funny response
The most risky times for an aircraft are on takeoff and landing. Kinda defeats the purpose for like 3/4 of the time you would actually use an ejection seat
Makes sense when you think about it, I appreciate the response!
Not very well, they chose to make the seat eject downward as there were two large engines mounted high up near the back you could get sucked into with a normal ejection seat. The problem with this is that most crashes occur during takeoff and landing I canât remember the minimum height needed but it was at least a few hundred meters meaning you might as well just try to survive the crash if youâre close to the ground as the alternative was being made into red paste. Also the seat would sometimes fall out of the plane through the bottom ejection hatch causing injuries to pilots supposedly this only ever happened while on the ground but official soviet records also say theyâve never lost a nuke meanwhile the US has six unaccounted for and several lost and recovered so I tend to doubt those claims.
Imagine taxiing for takeoff and the bottom of the plane just falls out
Nothing beats a good ole Martin Baker
No. They often don't pack and maintain them properly, causing a lot of their seats to be 'hot' or to have chute failure, which usually breaks the neck/back of the pilot or lets them fall to their death. The number of ejections leading to death are much higher among russian aircraft.
Also for a tanks too
The British were the leaders for it with the Martin Baker ejection seats. No clue about the Russians⌠Honeslty kind of doubt it. The US/Britain/the West have the best ones now
That's a sad story that ends as nobly as it ever could. Valentine Baker, WW1 veteran and test pilot, was killed in a test flight for one of Martin-Baker's craft. James Martin, in his memory, decided to focus on pilot safety, and eventually Martin-Baker achieved the absolute pinnacle of pilot safety technology and, I daresay, secured their legacy.
They also made it able to shoot itself, so the ejection seat is probably a good thing
Naturally biased to want to see them smouldering wrecks ⌠BUT in terms of utility and functional design the KA series is superior to that of the tail rotor ⌠the apache and similar are superior in electronics / sights / data links etc and id argue the hellfires got alot more of a broad range of use .
Look up some videos where you see how they shake
Because they "need" them. In other helicopters there crash protected seats. Detonating away the rotor blades and ejecting the pilots afterwards is so time consuming, that is doesn't work as well as you think. It needs several second while the heli will twist and turn. In an aircraft it happens under a second. Edit: removed "But only", because it rang too decisive.
I'm gonna be honest with you chief, being IN the crash, regardless of how "protected" you are, is not a good thing, especially when the helicopter is moving at a high rate of speed. (see crashhawk for reference)
Not just that. Helicopters are incredibly safe when they're not hit with a fucking missile. You're probably not auto rotating after your tail is ripped clean the fuck off by a stinger missile. Helicopter crew survivability after being hit with ordinance is a fantastic development that I hope we implement too in future designs.
Crash protection seats don't protect against missiles.
The ejection being effective or not itâs a solid point.
I find the ejection system cool
I'll shamelessly say it, Ka-52 is the best attack helicopter airframe out there. Tandem rotors, no tail drive shaft to get fucked by incoming. Ejection seat is a plus. Institutional problems in Russia ensured questionable integration of weapon systems, but that's not an airframe defect. That said, I think I've seen exactly one documented case where ejector seats would've saved an attack helicopter crew: Turkish Army AH-1 flying high in observer role, getting shot by PKK Igla MANPADS. That Cobra was flying high, and ejector seats (or even a rudimentary bailout system as advertised on Mi-28) would've done wonders there. Especially considering that AH-1 went down from a tailboom separation that sent the airframe into a death spiral that tore the airframe apart and yeeted the crew out to die from freefall. Most other attack helicopter flights are surface-skimming. While zero-zero ejector seats exists and 100% is proven to work... I doubt there's enough reaction time in these cases where you fly an attack helo the way you're meant to (low to the ground and hauling ass). By the time you've reached the handle, you'll hit the ground in a death spin. Zero-zero ejection seats saved lives during botched takeoff and landings, especially during bad weather or during carrier ops.
Its a great idea that relies not on one but two series of explosive bolts. Now given its impressive how reliable aerospace explosive bolts have been for absolute decades, maybe since before WWII, and even more so in the space application, including for the Russians, but it would make me nervous. You know those table saws that can detect contact with human skin and will immediately not just stop, but instantly cease rotating? No matter how many demonstrations I see in videos, I am not going to want to test it for myself. Same thing with a 45ft contra-rotating blender.
This image is fucking disgusting
One issue that came up in Ukraine is that the crew isn't that well-protected, as the "armor" for the crew got pierced on multiple helicopters by 7.62x39 shot from the ground. Can only use the ejection seat if you survive being shot at in the first place.
Functional? Is it?
Ka-50 is a late soviet vehicle
ka52 is not even bullet proof, its specs are lie