Ka-50 Black Shark vs Mi-28 Havoc – The Super-Condensed History | Why Single Seat & Coaxial

My “attempt “at a unbiased chain of events, boiled down from 6+ sources plus analysis on the coaxial & single-seat concepts. Some more details below. Depending on if you’re reading a book focusing on Kamov or on Mil, you’ll often get vastly different versions of the why’s. I’ve had to do some filtering to what seems to be the most likely series of events and the state each helo was in at what point in the competition.

The bulk of the sources I’ve found state both accidents involving rotor collisions were pretty much pilot error, though I’ve read/seen a few conflicting alternate versions of it.
Both accidents were unfortunately fatal.

In the segment where I mention the Mi-28A not going into export – to be fair, both the Shark and Mi-28A tried to get export sales in the 90’s but none of that materialised. How it kept competing though is of course another story.
I also don’t get to list who-funded-which prototype/development/venture when out of their own pocket, though that becomes a lot more complex, and I guess that also requires insight into how they’re funded (one may have received more funds outside of sales).

NB. what the Shark competed with vs. the Mi-28NM/NE/etc, now is very different. You’ll not I didn’t go into the advancements much past the 2000s like the radar. Similarly, how the bureaus interact might be very different today, especially as they now fall under the same company banner. This video was a slice of history.

I know showing IRL footage & photos would have been more impactful, but given the timeframe compression I did here and all the tech I mention, sourcing all that would have delayed this video by weeks. And yeah, the Mi-28N AI I used in the footage exhibits some interesting flight regimes. Simplified AI flight models & that. And yes, in some of these clips I forgot to switch to gyroscopic heading, so that may have affected the Ka-50’s flight and possibly targeting.

My summary in the conclusion is a bit dramatized, but for the most part this history is the most accurate I could get it from published sources which must have consulted both design bureaus. If you know some additional details, feel free to have a go in the comments.

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00:00 Super-condesnsed History
12:23 Coaxial choice
13:57 Single-seat & Performance
20:03 Production Run Size
21:52 Conclusions

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