| Russian
Helicopters at the Vietnamese Air Force Museum in Hanoi |
| As
well as the captured
UH-1 Iroquois in communist Vietnamese Air Force colours, there were
a number of Russian helicopters on display at the museum. This Mil
design bureau Mi-4, which has the NATO reporting name "Hound" was first
flown in 1952. It could carry up to 14 combat ready troops,
and was also produced in anti-submarine, close support and electronic countermeasures
(ECM) versions. Interestingly, though, this is the civil version
with square windows instead of round, and it was used to transport Ho Chi
Minh (or "Uncle Ho" as the associated sign prefers to call him) around
the country. |
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| At
first I thought that this helicopter had been mislabelled, but it is indeed
an Mi-24 "Hind", but a Hind-A assault helicopter rather than the more familiar
Hind-D helicopter gunship with bubble canopies which became so familiar
from the Soviet fighting in Afghanistan. |
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| The Hind-A entered
service in 1973 and was designed to carry troops into combat while using
its rockets and machine gun to supress enemy forces. According
to the sign this particular aircraft was used in the south-west against
Pol Pot's forces when Vietnam invaded Cambodia (or Kampuchea as it was
known at that time). |
 |
 Like
its bigger brother the Hind-D, the Hind-A has stub wings with pylons for
ground attack rockets, and missile rails which allow it to attack tanks.
As well as the Hind-A
and Hind-D there were other models like the Hind-B, whose stub wings lacked
the anhedral bend you can see here, and the Hind-C without the machine
gun or the missile rails at the ends of the wings. |
| Here's
a seriously cool bird, and one which would only be recognized by a serious
helicopter afficianado! The Kamov design bureau Ka-25, which
has the NATO reporting name "Hormone", is a jet-powered naval warfare specialist
which replaced the piston-powered Mi-4 "Hound" as the Soviet's main anti-submarine
helicopter. As you can see, the museum folks have kindly left
a depth charge of something similar attached. The "Hormone"
has mostly been superseded by the very similar-looking Ka-28 "Helix", and
I was lucky enough to photograph a
Ka-28 "Helix" on the ground at Danang airport. |
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| As you might have
noticed, the Ka-25 has no tail rotor. It's not necessary, since
the contra-rotating rotors cancel out each other's torque and so there's
no twisting action for the tail rotor to counter. The Kamov
design bureau specialized in helicopters with contra-rotating rotors, producing
only one model with the "normal" main rotor and tail rotor configuration.
You can see some Kamov
helicopters in action during the 2005 MAKS airshow in Moscow. |
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| The
"Hormone" was very interesting, but here's my favorite of the helicopters
on display - an enormous Mil design bureau Mi-6 "Hook". Amazingly,
this huge aircraft was the first Russian helicopter with jet engines; indeed,
it was the first twin turbine helicopter in the world. For
twelve years it was the largest helicopter in the world, finally being
overtaken by the even more mind-boggling V-12 "Homer" which had four jet
engines and two main rotors set side-by-side at the ends of its shoulder-mounted
wings. The Mi-12 used the same engine configuration and main
rotor as the Mi-6 but it seems that technical difficulties meant that it
didn't enter full production. |
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| If you look in the
previous photo you'll see my Vietnamese driver leaning against one of the
Hook's main wheels, which is at about shoulder height. He looks
rather taller than the wheel in this photo, but that's because I had to
take it with an extremely wide angle lens. With a construction
site fence right behind me it was the only way to fit the whole helicopter
into the photo. If you still doubt the size of this machine,
consider this - the Mi-6 can carry twice as much as the largest American
helicopter, the
CH-64 Tarhe "Sky Crane" - in fact, it's capable of lifting a Tarhe.
The accompanying sign said that it had often lifted MiG-17s and MiG-21s;
the Vietnamese would conceal their aircraft in servicing areas in the jungle
and airlift them to a roughly prepared field for takeoff, then return them
to the jungle afterwards. Most remarkable perhaps is the Hook's
ability to transport up to 120 people when it's in its high-density seating
configuration! When it's in forward flight, the 15 meter span
wings provide about 20 per cent of the total lift; these wings are detachable
and are normally not used when the helicopter is being used for fire-fighting. |
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