Gaz B

The US turned off the civilian GPS in Georgia and the area around it during the 08 08 08 conflict there which made Russian operations more difficult. Have also heard reports that JDAM could not be used in Afghanistan against certain targets in the mountains because the cave targets required high precision to get the munitions into cave entrances and without solid signals from three or more satellites it was not possible to use them.

Why do you say that? Production of three flying prototypes started late last year and are scheduled to begin flight testing next year.

Strange that the Ka-52 shown lacks the roof mounted ball turret and the periscope mount beneath the pilot. Also missing was the mast mounted radar. From memory the MMW radar for scanning for ground targets was to be in the nose with a 70-80 degree field of view, while the much smaller antenna above the main rotor head was the CM wave radar with 360 degrees FOV. I wonder if they are going to perhaps combine the Ball turret with the optics with the CM wave radar perhaps? Or maybe they have the ball turret for the optics and just haven't bothered fitting them for what is only a flight test to test the aircraft. BTW thanks for the vids and the pics.

Can be rolled and looped. It has a hingeless, bearingless main rotor system to allow manouvering capability. The fully articulated rotor head of the Hind would come apart in a loop. Latest Mi-35M exported upgraded Hind like the ones Brazil is buying has Mi-28 rotors so it should be able to be looped and rolled too. The AOA sensor on the nose of the Havoc is to determine the wind conditions. The fact that it is in the main rotor downwash is not important. For most unguided rockets much of the randomness of their flightpath (ie inaccuracy) comes from that first period when they accelerate from the rocket pod through the rotor downwash towards the target so having a sensor that records which way the air is flowing is useful to work out where the rockets might be heading. Obviously a laser guidance head as used with Ugroza would make more sense.

They might reveal PAK-FA prototype at MAKs 09.