Andrew Baranovski
translated by jno
The first official flight of army helicopter Ka-60 "Kasatka" has taken place yesterday at the flight'n'test station of the Kamov company. The aircraft created by a team under the supervision of leading designed Vyacheslav Krygin was flown by the test-pilot Vladimir Lavrov.
Ka-60 is the very first helicopter of the Kamov company built in "classic" scheme. All the previous Kamov's helicopters were of co-axial-rotors scheme: naval Ka-25, Ka-27, and Ka-29; combat Ka-50 "Black Shark" and Ka-52 "Alligator".
As the president's advisor in aviation Eugene Shaposhnikov said, the tests of "Kasatka" will be finished up in a year. The serial production facility for Ka-60 will be determined after the marketing research. It's planned to have a civil version of Ka-60 - Ka-64. It's interesting that the military version of the aircraft will be certified by rules of civil aviation, which will reduce the time of promotion to the local and foreign markets.
The remarkable feature of Ka-60 is the fact that all the equipment and parts are russian-made, including avionics and RD-600 engines from "Rybinsk Motors".
The helicopter is intended to carry 2 tons of payload inside and 2.5 tons of payload on the undercarriage. In the military version it can carry 11 servicemen with full equipment or 14 passengers. Ka-60 will cover the need in middle class helicopters, which were not built in Russia after the Mi-4 production was over. As the result, it's common to have a Mi-8 to carry 5-8 men for 850 kg of fuel in a hour (while Ka-60 takes 350 kg/hour).
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Issue 241 (1812) of 25 December 1998 г., Friday.
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Main Entry: killer whale Function: noun Date: 1884 : a small gregarious whale (Orcinus orca) that is black with a white ventral side and white oval-shaped patches behind the eyes and attains a length of 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1 meters) -- called also orca