MISSION

The mission of the Mi-28A combat helicopter is to destroy armoured and unarmored combat materiel, low and slow flying airborne vehicles and other battlefield targets. The helicopter can be operated autonomously for long periods from poorly prepared pads in the forward area of operations.

WEAPONS

The Mi-28A has small sweptback mid-mounted stubwings with four suspension units. Countermeasures pods are mounted on the wingtips. The helicopter can be armed with a mixture of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, unguided rockets and podded guns. When a high priority target is detected, the pilot uses a helmet mounted target designator which allocates the target to the navigator's surveillance and fire control system. The navigator/weapons officer is then able to deploy guided weapons or gun against the target. The targeting system follows the direction of the pilot's eyes.

SURVEILLANCE AND FIRE CONTROL SYSTEM

The integrated surveillance and fire control system has two optical channels providing wide and narrow fields of view and a narrow field of view optical television channel. The system can move within 110 degrees in azimuth and from +13 to -40 degrees in elevation. The system also incorporates a laser rangefinder.

ANTI-TANK MISSILE

The Mi-28N Night Havoc is armed with Shturm and Ataka anti-tank missiles supplied by the Machinery Design Bureau, Moscow Region. Up to 16 anti-tank missiles can be mounted on the helicopter. Shturm is a short-range radio command-guided missile. The Ataka missile's guidance is by narrow radar beam and maximum range of the missile is 8 kilometres.

The target hit probability of the Ataka missile is higher than 0.96 at ranges 3 to 6 kilometres. The missile has a shaped charge warhead with a tandem charge for penetration of 950 to 1000 mm thick omogeneous armour and also multilayer and explosive armour.

AIR TO AIR MISSILES

The helicopter can launch fire-and-forget air to air missiles with independent self homing systems

UNGUIDED WEAPONS

The helicopter can also carry four containers each with twenty 80 mm unguided rockets or with five 122 mm rockets. The helicopter can alternatively carry containers with grenade launchers, 23 mm guns, 12.7 and 7.62 machine guns, aerial bombs and incendiary tanks.

CANNON

The helicopter is equipped with a turreted 30 mm cannon, the 2A42.The gun mount is stabilised in two planes. A firing unit is installed between two faired cartridge housings mounted directly on the gun carriage. The gun is fed selectively from the cartridge housings. The cannon provides a muzzle velocity of 1,000 metres per second.

ENGINES

The Mi-28A helicopter is powered by two TV3-117VMA turboshaft engines, fitted on either side of the fuselage. It is equipped with an auxiliary power unit for self- contained operation. The thermal signature of the helicopter has been reduced by a factor of 2.5x compared to its predecessor, the Mi-24.

ROTOR BLADES

The main rotor head of the Mi-28 has elastomeric bearings and the main rotor blades are made from composite materials. The tail rotor is designed on a biplane configuration with independently controlled X-shaped blades. The turnable stabilizer is fitted asymmetrically on the end of a tailboom. In real combat missions the single rotor design allows the helicopter to continue flight and land with damaged main rotor blades or damaged anti-torque blades in the majority of cases. A new design of rotor blade, all plastic with swept shaped tips has been installed on the Night Havoc Mi-28N helicopter. The new blades can sustain hits from 30 mm shells.

STRUCTURE

The helicopter design is based on the conventional pod and boom configuration with a tail rotor. The pilot and the navigator/systems officer are accommodated in two separate cockpits in tandem configuration under individual canopies. The fuselage of the Mi-28 has a bay fitted with a hatch door. The helicopter has non-retractable tricycle tailwheel type landing gear. The energy absorbing landing gear and seats protect the crew in a crash landing or in a low-altitude vertical fall. The crew are able to survive a vertical fall up to 12 metres per second.

COCKPIT

The crew have two compartments separated with armoured partitioning, the pilot seated in the higher rear compartment and the navigator/systems officer in the front compartment..The Mi-28 has a fully armoured cabin including the windshield which withstands impact by 7.62 and 12.7 mm bullets and 20 mm shell fragments.

MI-28N NIGHT HAVOC

The Night Havoc helicopter first flew in November 1996 and the test procedures are scheduled for completion during 1999. The Night Havoc helicopter retains most of the structural design of the Mi-28. The main difference is the installation of an integrated electronic combat system. Other modifications include the main gearbox for transmitting higher power to the rotor; new design of high efficiency blades with swept- shaped tips; an engine fuel injection control system for high power operating modes.

The main sensors of the integrated electronic combat system are the microwave radar antenna mounted above the rotor head and a FLIR (forward looking infrared) system. The integrated combat system uses onboard processing to display the helicopter location on a moving map indicator, and to show the flight, systems and target information on liquid crystal displays. The crew are equipped with night vision goggles.