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In 2018, some media sources said that India plans to spend $1 billion to buy up to 200 Russian-made Ka-226T light helicopters, of which 60 will be delivered directly to the Indian military after Russia completes production, and the remaining 140 will be produced in India by a joint venture between India and Russia. So why did India suddenly buy this helicopter?
Russian Ka-226 utility helicopter
Reluctant to "assemble" to "manufacture"
In fact, as early as December 2015, the Russian and Indian governments signed an agreement on the purchase of this type of helicopter by the Indian side and the cooperation in the transfer and manufacture of this type of helicopter, but the implementation of the agreement has been delayed due to the failure to reach agreement on some specific issues. The Russian proposal is that after the delivery of 60 helicopters to India in stock, the next 140 will be supplied to India in the form of finished and semi-finished components, which means that the remaining 140 helicopters will only be "assembled" and not "manufactured" in India. The Indian side obviously hopes to get more benefits through the follow-up local production of Ka-226T helicopters, which is conducive to improving the technical level of domestic helicopter manufacturing.
But judging from the current results, it is still Russia that leads the deal, mainly because the Indian military has an extremely urgent need for this type of helicopter, and the Indian military has lost patience with the efficiency and quality of India's domestic military production. However, why the Indian military has such an urgent demand for light helicopters such as the Ka-226T, and what significance and role it will have for the Indian army is what we should pay more attention to.
Indian "Cheetah" helicopter
The Ka-226T helicopter is a high-performance helicopter that suits India's needs
On the Indian side, the Indian Army Aviation is currently the largest user of its helicopter equipment. For a long time after the establishment of the Indian Army Air Force, the "Cheetah" and "Indian Leopard" light helicopters were the main equipment.
The main purpose of the "Cheetah" and "Indian Leopard" in the Indian Army Aviation is to reconnoiter the targets to be destroyed, suppressed, or blocked by the artillery in the theater of operations, to observe the artillery firing positions and terrain, to provide the artillery with the information needed for geodesy, and to indicate the target and correct the firing elements for the artillery. With the increase of the Indian Army's demand for battlefield intelligence, its reconnaissance scope has been extended to the entire ground battlefield, including ascertaining the terrain of the theater and the enemy's combat deployment, the distribution of strongholds, the interstitial grounds, the firepower system, the setting of obstacles, the depth of the enemy's defense and the allocation of troops, monitoring the enemy's activities, and judging the changes in the enemy's situation. During the border conflict between India and Pakistan in the late 90s, due to the extremely complex terrain in the conflict zone, the role of using reconnaissance helicopters from the air to conduct in-depth reconnaissance and surveillance of Pakistan's military deployment and dynamics, as well as to provide target designation and corrective shooting for Indian ground artillery, was particularly important.
However, with the passage of time, these "Cheetah" and "Indian Leopard" helicopters, which were produced in the 6th and 70s of the last century, and are getting older and older, have become close to critical status, and not only are it becoming more and more difficult to maintain their normal operation, but also frequent crashes have occurred, and in fact, the time has long since reached the point where they must be replaced.
The Indian Navy is equipped with the "Indian Leopard" helicopter, which is also produced with imported technology
To this end, as early as July 1984, the Indian government signed a contract with the former German MBB company to develop advanced light helicopters, and Hindustan Aeronautics and MBB jointly developed the ALH "Polaris" advanced light helicopter to replace the "Cheetah"/"Indian Panther" helicopter. According to the agreement, MBB was responsible for the design of the ALH's airframe, drivetrain and rotor system, and the engine was selected with Turbomeca's TM333 turboshaft engine. On August 30, 1992, the first prototype of the ALH was successfully tested, and production began in 1997.
The ALH "Polaris" is a 5-ton single-rotor twin-engine multi-purpose light helicopter with tail rotor, which is planned to be mainly used for communications and liaison, personnel transportation, land and sea reconnaissance, transportation of the wounded, rescue, cargo transportation and combat training of the Indian army, navy and air force.
Up to now, more than 160 ALH helicopters have been delivered, but despite India's repeated claims that the performance of ALH helicopters has reached the world's advanced level, the performance of the aircraft after delivery is frequent failures and even accidents, and there have been frequent crashes. The impact is even more serious is that the crash rate of ALH helicopters that have been exported abroad is even as high as 50%. In particular, the 7 ALHs sold to Ecuador crashed in various accidents in just a few years, and the most thrilling thing was that they almost caught the country's president. For this reason, the Ministry of Defense of Ecuador issued an announcement that it is willing to sell the "left" 3 ALH helicopters at a low price, or even give them away for free, but even then no country has taken over so far.
The ALH "Polaris" advanced light helicopter jointly developed by Hindustan Aeronautics and MBB
A series of crashes suggest that the aircraft is likely to have major flaws in its basic design, and while its manufacturer has vehemently denied this, the reality is that the original refitting plan of the Indian Army Aviation Force has been postponed or may even be cancelled. However, the Indian army's demand for light multi-purpose helicopters is becoming more and more urgent, this kind of equipment is India's military deployment and operations in the long high-altitude zone in the north, especially a large number of roads are impassable, can not provide rations, equipment, weapons from the ground outposts, its "Cheetah" and "Indian Panther" role is extremely important, but also the Indian army is equipped with Russian-made Mi-8/17 and other large and medium-sized general transport helicopters can not be replaced.
In contrast, the Russian-made Ka-226T helicopter is not only small in size, wide in use, flexible and convenient in deployment and use, and has strong plateau usability, but also its carrying capacity is more than twice as high as that of the "Indian Leopard", and its comprehensive performance is very much in line with the needs of the Indian army.
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According to relevant information, the Ka-226T is a light multi-purpose helicopter developed by the Kamov Helicopter Design Bureau of Russia in the 90s of the last century on the basis of the Ka-26/126 developed earlier. The aircraft inherited the classic coaxial twin-rotor layout of the Kamov Design Bureau, using two sets of coaxial reversing 3-blade rotors. The shape of the nose, vertical tail, rudder and passenger compartment has been redesigned. Its length is 8.1 meters, its height is 4.15 meters, and its main rotor diameter is 13 meters. The empty weight is 1952 kg, the maximum take-off weight is 3600 kg, and the crew is 7 people. It adopts two Aheryou 2G1 engines produced by the French company Turbomeca, with an economic cruising speed of 185 km/h, a maximum speed of 250 km/h, a maximum climb rate of 10.17 m/s, a range of 600 km, and a cruising time of 4 hours and 42 minutes. An important feature of the aircraft is that the cabin at the rear of the cockpit can be detached, and when performing transport tasks, its cabin can be loaded with 1,000 kg of cargo or 7 passengers, and after the cabin is removed, different equipment can be installed according to the needs to perform a variety of military tasks, so it has strong flexibility of use, which is very suitable for the needs of India.
The most interesting thing about the Ka-226 helicopter is that the passenger (cargo) compartment at the rear of the cockpit can be removed
epilogue
According to the agreement reached between Russia and India, the first 60 aircraft will be produced by the Russian aircraft factory in Ulan-Ude, and the next 140 will be produced at the joint venture plant of the two countries in Bangalore. Some analysts said that because the current "Indian Leopard" and "Cheetah" helicopters have been out of service for more than 12 to 15 years, the Indian army may need nearly 800 such light utility helicopters in the future to meet daily needs. This means that local production of the machine in India is likely to continue for a longer period of time. Given that the subsequent production of 140 helicopters will be supplied to the Indian manufacturing plant in the form of finished and semi-finished components, it will be about 10 years before India wants to produce the helicopters on its own. But even so, it is questionable whether India will be able to fully control the in-house manufacturing capacity of all components in the early assembly production, otherwise its subsequent production will not be able to get rid of its dependence on the Russian side.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the large-scale introduction of Ka-226T helicopters will certainly play a certain role in improving the observation, supply and even mountain combat capabilities of the Indian army, especially in the northern plateau region, but after all, the Ka-226T is only a light helicopter with limited load capacity and protection capacity, and its tasks and roles in the modern battlefield are also relatively limited.