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In 1953, the USSR started the development of a new type of heavy-lift helicopter.
Both Mil and Kamov were selected to come up with designs and the race was on to develop what would be at the time - the worlds largest helicopter. Its requirements would be simple - BIG, FAST and POWERFUL.
Mil was already having their previous designs in the serial production, like the legendary Mi-4, while Kamov was still struggling to make a name for itself in the Soviet military circles.
Ka-25 and their coaxial rotor design would become their springboard to success, but at the time, they thought the big break would be with the new heavy lift helicopter programme, so they decided to go all in.
Kamov would base its design on the Bratukhin B-11. They figured that if the twin-rotor helicopter was larger, you could fit two horizontal propellers under the wings - and ta da! a monster helicopter to inspire fear in the west!
Heres how it would have worked!
The Ka-22 would have two large engines fixed on each wing tip. These engines would power both a four-bladed propeller and a four-bladed main rotor - operating them for either vertical or horizontal flight. Not at the same time however. During vertical flight, the horizontal propeller would be disconnected - then when switching to forward flight, the rotors were allow to spin naturally but were left witout power. These engines on the wingtips would be badass, having up to 5,900 horsepower.
These blades would push the aircraft up to a planned 400 km/h - although during tests it only achieved a still impressive 356km/h.
The four crew cockpit would sit above the nose of the aircraft, with seating for a futher 80 soliders in the rear. If not men, the KA-22 would be able to carry 16.5 tons of bulky cargo - with the nose of the aircraft swinging open at airfields of quick loading and unloading.
While the team initially wanted to use the Li-2 fuselage as a base but ended scrapping it for a more costly new airframe.
Or so the brilliant minds at Kamov thought. In reality, the project was doomed as soon as the rotors started to spin.
In 1961. The test pilot of the first flight, Dmitriy Yefremov, would go on to break the world record for gyrodyne speed and set it at 356km/h. Along that one, several other world records have been broken with the aircraft, some of which still stand to this day.
The one record they didn’t break however, was beating Mil to the punch with a first flight. Their rival, who you may remember was also going for the same lucrative heavy lift helicopter project, had already flown their aircraft in 1957.
But this would only be a footnote in history compared to what happened a year later.
In 1962, while testing one of the four prototypes, the aircraft rolled to the left and crashed - killing all onboard, including Dimitriy.
The flaw was discovered in the starboard rotor collective pitch control linkage, and further inspection found that two of the other three Ka-22s suffered from similar problems. A complicated autopilot feature had to be built just to correct this issue for the rest of the aircraft.
Because of these 2 crashes and the fact that the aircraft was super complex to build and hard to fly, goverment decided to pull the plug and meanwhile Mi-6 got the contract and became one of the most popular heavy helis of Soviet air force later on
Kamov had one more design that would be the fastest, biggest helicopter ever built.
In 1967, the Kamov Deisgn Bureau decided to have another crack at the Gyrodyne concept with a project simply called the Kamov Ka-35D. This version would be huge, and was designed to work in tandem with the impressive An-12.
The big difference between the KA-22 and this monster was its twin turbojet eninges. This would increase its speed to 550 km per hour, and its lifting capacity to over 20 tons. These engines would give it a range of around 800 km, which would make it perfect for deploying troops, up to 100 of them, to remote locations from airbases. Models at the time even feature the aircraft taking onboard SAMs or other lightly armoured tanks - so you know they ment buisness.
However, this project never saw the light of day, but their biggest rival Mil, actually tried their chance with a similar concept, Mi V-12, of which prototype was made and also broke several records in the helicopter world, but ended up in a museum.
28 сен 2024
