The Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark (NATO reporting name: 'Hokum A') is a single-seat Russian attack helicopter with the distinctive coaxial rotor system of the Kamov design bureau. Kamov Ka-50 was designed in the 1980s and adopted for service in the Russian army in 1995. It is currently manufactured by the Progress company of Arseniev.
Specifications of Kamov Ka-50/Ka-52
General characteristics
- Crew: One (for Ka-52: two)
- Length: 13.50 m (44 ft 3 in)
- Rotor diameter: 2x 14.50 m (2x 47 ft 7 in)
- Height: 5.4 m (17 ft 9 in)
- Disc area: 330.3 m² (3,555 ft²)
- Empty weight: 7,800 kg (17,200 lb)
- Loaded weight: 9,800 kg (21,600 lb)
- Max takeoff weight: 10,800 kg (23,810 lb)
- Powerplant: 2× Klimov TV3-117VK turboshafts, 1,660 kW (2,226 shp) each
- For Ka-52:
- Loaded weight: 10,400 kg (22,930 lb)
Performance
- Maximum speed: 390 km/h (204 knots, 242 mph) in dive
- Cruise speed: 270 km/h (146 knots, 168 mph)
- Range: 1,160 km (720 miles)
- Combat radius: 460 km ()
- Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,000 ft)
- Rate of climb: 10 m/s (1,970 ft/min)
- Disc loading: 30 kg/m² (6 lb/ft²)
- Power/mass: 0.33 kW/kg (0.20 hp/lb)
Armament
- 1x mobile semi-rigid 30 mm Shipunov 2A42 cannon (240 rounds, dual feeding AP or HE-Frag)
- A variety of payloads on the four wing hardpoints, including UPK-23-250 23-mm gun pods (240 rounds each), APU-6 9K121 Vikhr anti-tank missile racks, Vympel R-73 (NATO: AA-11 Archer) air-to-air missiles, S-8 rocket 80 mm and S-13 rocket 122 mm rocket pods, Kh-25 semi-active laser guided tactical air-to-ground missiles, presumably S-25/S-25L high caliber rockets, 4x 250 kg (550 lb) bombs or 2x500kg (1,100 lb) bombs, 500 L (130 US gal) external fuel tanks. Reportedly, twin Igla light air-to-air missile launchers under each wingtip countermeasure pod (total 4 missiles). Maximum total payload 2,000 kg.
- Two pods on the wingtips with flare and chaff countermeasure dispensers, 64 cartridges each (total 128).
The Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark is the production version of the V-80Sh-1 prototype. Production of the Kamov Ka-50 attack helicopter was ordered by the Soviet Council of Ministers on 14 December 1987. Following initial flight testing and system tests the Council ordered the first batch of helicopters in 1990. The attack helicopter was first described publicly as the "Ka-50" in March 1992 at a symposium in the United Kingdom.The Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark was designed to be small, fast, and agile to improve survivability and lethality. For minimal weight and size (thus maximal speed and agility) it was - uniquely among gunships - to be operated by a single pilot only. The Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark concluded after thorough research of helicopter combat in Afghanistan and other war zones that the typical attack mission phases of low-level approach, pop-up target acquisition, and weapon launch do not simultaneously demand navigation, maneuvering, and weapons operation of the pilot; and thus with well-designed support automation a single pilot can carry out the entire mission alone. However, it is still an unanswered question whether in practice the rank and file of Black Shark pilots would suffer from excess fatigue from this combined workload.
Like other Kamov helicopters, it features Kamov's characteristic contra-rotating co-axial rotor system, which removes the need for the entire tail-rotor assembly and improves the aircraft's aerobatic qualities - it can perform loops, rolls, and “the funnel” (circle-strafing) where the aircraft maintains a line-of-sight to the target while flying circles of varying altitude, elevation, and airspeed around it. Kamov Ka-50 is using two rotors means that a smaller rotor with slower-moving rotor tips can be used compared to a single rotor design. Since the speed of the advancing rotor tip is a primary limitation to the maximum speed of a helicopter, this allows a faster maximum speed than helicopters such as the AH-64. The elimination of the tail rotor is a qualitative advantage because the torque-countering tail rotor can use up to 30% of engine power. Furthermore, the vulnerable boom and rear gearbox are fairly common causes of helicopter losses in combat; the Black Shark's entire transmission presents a comparatively small target to ground fire. The Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark maintains that the co-axial drive assembly is built to survive hits from 23 mm ammunition like the other vital parts of the helicopter. The zero native torque also allows the aircraft to be fairly immune to wind strength and direction, and to have an unsurpassed turn rate in all travel speed envelopes.
The Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark single seat configuration was considered undesirable by NATO. The first two Ka-50 prototypes had false windows painted on them. The "windows" evidently worked as the first western reports of the aircraft were wildly inaccurate. For improved pilot survivability the Kamov Ka-50 is fitted with a NPP Zvezda K-37-800 ejection seat, which is a rare feature for a helicopter. Before the rocket in the ejection seat deploys, the rotor blades are blown away by explosive charges in the rotor disc and the canopy is similarly jettisoned.
The first Kamov Ka-50 prototype was nicknamed "Werewolf", but Kamov's official name for the type is "Black Shark". As the Soviet Union's collapse vastly reduced military spending before the Ka-50 could go into full-scale production, a relatively small number of these aircraft have been built. Reportedly the Ka-50's development took place in record time, as Kamov had the forethought of placing liaison engineers at major component suppliers and systems subcontractors.
The Kamov Ka-50 and its modifications have been chosen as the special forces support helicopter while the Mi-28 has become the main army's gunship. The production of Ka-50 was recommenced in 2006. It was announced in late 2008 that only five more Ka-50s would be produced, and that production would be reconfigured to make exclusively the more adaptable and advanced Ka-52s.
Ka-50-2 Erdogan
In 1997, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in cooperation with the Kamov bureau entered the Ka-50-2 Erdogan in a Turkish design competition for a $4 billion contract for 145 (later changed to 50) combat helicopters. Erdogan is Turkish for "Born Warrior"; incidentally, this is also the name of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was at that time a rising political star in Turkey).
The Kamov Ka-50-2 is a tandem cockpit twin-seater variant of the Kamov Ka-50 that featured a modern, Israeli-made "glass cockpit" avionics and a turret-mounted side-folding (for landing clearance) 30 mm cannon as opposed to the fixed cannon of the Ka-50. (A similar Italian turret is also offered as a modification to the Kamov Ka-50). The Erdogan beat the Eurocopter and Apache helicopters, but lost to an improved version of AH-1 Cobra. At the end the contract went to the Italian A-129 Mangusta.
Ka-50N and Ka-50Sh
Because of the limited night-time capability of the original Kamov Ka-50 "Shkval" TV sighting and targeting system, modified versions of the single-seat Kamov Ka-50 were built. They were named Kamov Ka-50N ("Nochnoy", rus. "Night") and Kamov Ka-50Sh ("Shar", "Sphere" because of the spherical FLIR turret). Many variants were tried, on some the original "Shkval" was supplemented by a thermal imaging system, while on others completely replaced by "Samshite" day-and-night system, including French SAGEM or Thomson thermal imagers. None of those have entered mass production so far.
Ka-52 "Alligator"
The Ka-52 is another modification of the basic Kamov Ka-50 design. It features a two-place side-by-side cockpit, and is designed to detect targets and redistribute them among supporting Ka-50s. In comparison to the original Ka-50, it has a somewhat "softer" nose profile due to the wider cockpit, reduced cockpit armor, and large nose-mounted radome. Equipment includes radar with two antennas — mast-mounted for aerial targets and nose-mounted for ground targets, and "Samshite" day-and-night TV/thermal sighting system in two spherical turrets (one over the cockpit and second under the nose). The Ka-52 retains the side mounted cannon and six wing mounted hardpoints of the original Kamov Ka-50.
Development of Ka-52 was started after 1994 in Russia. Economical and political problems prevented the Ka-52 from going into full scale production. Currently only few of them exist. Serial production of "Ka-52" was started at autumn 2008.
