Kamov V-80

The Kamov V-80 was a design study designation for an attack helicopter that eventually evolved into the single seat Kamov Ka-50 family of aircraft.

By the mid-1970s, the Soviet Defense Ministry determined that the Mi-24 “Hind” attack helicopter (then the backbone of the Soviet Army Aviation) was not going to meet future Army requirements. Acting on the advice of the Ministry, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union passed a resolution on the development of a new-generation combat helicopter that could be fielded with the Soviet Army Aviation in the 1980s. The prospective helicopter's primary purpose was to destroy the armored forces close to the forward edge of battle area (FEBA). This resolution pitted competing programs run by N.I. Kamov and Ml. Mil's design bureaus against each other. At that time, both developers had already gained valuable experience in designing and producing rotary-wing aircraft.

Design of the V-80 (later Ka-50), began at the Kamov Helicopter Plant in January 1977. The program was run by the head of the design bureau, Chief Designer Sergei Mikheyev, who was later to become Designer General.

Kamov designers believed that combining the duties of flying, navigation, target detection, and tracking could be automated to a degree that a single crew member could perform all functions. Further, it was not expected that this would cause an excessive psychological and physical strain on the pilot. By the late seventies, the sophistication level of the Soviet helicopter industry ensured the building of such automatic systems was possible; even the Ka-25 and Ka-27 featured an automatic submarine search capability, automatic navigation and flight modes, automatic data exchange among the helicopters operating in the same flight, etc. A single-person crew would provide the benefits of weight reduction, better flight performance, reduce training costs and reduce the number of possible combat casualties.

One of the program priorities was to enhance the helicopter's survivability. With this goal in mind, the configuration and systems' arrangement were chosen, assemblies designed, and structural materials tested. The helicopter lacked a very vulnerable tail rotor as well as an intermediate and tail reduction gearbox and control rods. The following measures to enhance pilot survivability were taken:

• The engines were placed on both sides of the airframe to prevent a single hit from destroying both engines

• The helicopter could fly on a single engine in various modes

• The cockpit was armored and screened with combined steel/aluminum armor and armored Plexiglas

• The hydraulic steering system compartment was armored and screened

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