70 years ago, the tests of the legendary Mi-4 amphibious transport helicopter beganSerial rotorcraft appeared in the Red Army even before the Great Patriotic War.
These were two-seat autogyros A-7–3A designed by Nikolai Kamov. An autogyro is an aircraft with a pulling propeller, in which the bearing rotor rotates not from the engine, but freely, under the influence of an incoming air flow. However, there were very few of them: just one correction and reconnaissance squadron of five vehicles.
But even these chirping products fought, taking photographs of enemy positions in 1941 and scattering leaflets. Gyroplanes were equipped with machine guns and could carry bombs and rockets, becoming the prototype of modern combat helicopters.
FIRST STEPSMeanwhile, Germany and especially the USA during the Second World War already used helicopters, that is, rotary-wing vertical take-off and landing vehicles, in which the main rotor is driven by an engine.
The Germans had the world's first Focke-Ahgelis Fa.223 Drache ("Dragon") transport helicopters, designed to carry four soldiers or half a ton of cargo (and on an external suspension – and artillery systems). As well as two-seat reconnaissance Flettner Fl.282 Kolibri ("Hummingbird"), which took off, in particular, from ships. In total, about 40 of them were built, although the swing on the "Hummingbird" was serious – 1000 cars. But the carpet bombing of the factories of Hitler's military-industrial complex by allied aviation crossed out these plans.
Since 1943, the Americans began using light helicopters designed by Igor Sikorsky R-4 Hoverfly ("Fly-murmur"). They were adopted by the Army, Navy and Coast Guard. "Babblers", of which about a hundred were built, were used in Burma and in the Pacific Ocean to search for downed pilots, rescue sailors, evacuate the wounded, and transport small cargo. Several of these machines were transferred to Britain. The scheme with one main and tail rotor, implemented by Igor Ivanovich in the R-4, is still a classic of the world helicopter industry.
The military experience of operating helicopters promised them a great future. This was well understood in the USSR. In the second half of the 1940s, light helicopters of the Ivan Bratukhin design built in very small numbers with two transversely arranged rotors were tested (the same scheme was used on the German "Drach"). They were a further development of his own experienced Omega helicopters, created back in 1941-1944.
Post-war Bratukhinsky G-3 "Artillery Spotter" and G-4 became the first Soviet serial helicopters. Out of five G-3s, the first Soviet helicopter aviation squadron, a training squadron, was formed in 1947. But Bratukhin's helicopters were considered unpromising by the authorities, and at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s his Design Bureau was disbanded.
And the first success of the mass Soviet helicopter industry was the launch of the Mikhail Mil Mi-1 light multipurpose helicopter into a large series in 1950. Having won the Yakovlev Yak-100, which strongly resembled the Sikorsky R-5 helicopter of the 1945 model, the four-seat Mi-1 found application in the army and the national economy as a liaison, reconnaissance and correction, training, sanitary, postal and passenger and agricultural (for spraying chemicals) helicopter.
Being put on floats, the Mi-1 became an onboard helicopter of the Slava whaling flotilla. It was located, but with a conventional chassis, and on the nuclear icebreaker "Lenin". Taking into account the licensed production in Poland, customers in the USSR, the Warsaw Pact countries and others received about 2,700 Mi-1s.
The Mi-1 has served for more than 30 years (the longest, apparently, in DOSAAF flying clubs). It set several world records in its class of rotorcraft. The Mi-1 was in no way inferior to foreign vehicles in this class, but it was impossible to solve combat tasks for the transfer of troops and the landing of airborne troops with its help.
OVERTAKE SIKORSKYMeanwhile, by the early 1950s, the US helicopter industry had mastered the production of much more lifting helicopters for amphibious transport purposes - the Sikorsky S-55 (H–19 Chickasaw - "Chickasaw", an Indian tribe) and the Pyasetsky H-21 Shawnee ("Shawnee", also "Indian").
The same "Chickasaw", in fact, opened a new page in the history of military art, being actively used during the Korean War for airmobile operations.
The lag in this area was unacceptable, and in 1951 the Mil Design Bureau began the development of the VD-12 – "landing helicopter 12-seater"). The case was argued, and already in April 1952, its factory tests began. The ASH-82V was chosen as the engine – a "helicopter" version of Arkady Shvetsov's well-mastered engine, which was equipped with the last La-9 and La-11 piston fighters in the USSR, the production of which began in 1946-1947.
There should hardly be any doubt that the VD-12, which received the designation Mi-4 in the series, was created in the image and likeness of the American S-55: their layout and appearance are too similar. But our helicopter looks much more elegant and swift than the fat Chickasaw. Perhaps that is why NATO Mi-4 was given the nickname Hound ("Hound").
But the main thing is that Mi-4 surpassed the American in terms of tactical and technical data. Its engine power is 1,700 hp, the S–55 has 800 hp, the maximum speed of the main modification of the Mi-4A is 210-214 km/h, the S–55 has 175-180 km/h, the payload of the Mi-4A is 1,670 kg, the S-55 has half as much, 800 kg. Only in terms of the maximum flight range (up to 760 km), Igor Ivanovich's "Chickasaw" surpassed Mikhail Leontievich's "Hound" (590-660 km).
Mi-4A transported 12-16 fighters with weapons, "Chickasaw" - 10. A feature of the "Hound" was the possibility of receiving and landing landing through a double-leaf cargo hatch of light equipment: a commander's SUV GAZ-67B or GAZ-69, or a 76-mm ZiS-3 cannon with calculation, or a 57-mm anti-tank gun ZiS-2 with calculation, or two 120-mm mortars with service, or pairs of M-72 motorcycles with sidecars plus five paratroopers. In the sanitary configuration of the cargo cabin, the Mi-4A could evacuate eight stretcher or 12 sedentary wounded with an accompanying medical worker. Unlike the American, the Soviet helicopter had a built–in armament - A 12.7-mm large-caliber machine gun A-12.7 in the nasal ventral installation. There was something to whip the enemy before the landing!
The English edition of The Directory of Modern Military Weapons gave the Mi-4 the following assessment: "The helicopter has become a much more powerful military vehicle than its Western contemporaries ... The Mi-4 was one of the most important helicopters of the Soviet Army. At the 1956 air parade in Tushino, a group of 36 helicopters showed the ability to land large, well-armed infantry forces."
As one of the founding fathers of the Russian helicopter industry, Alexander Izakson, noted, "having high flight data, equipped with perfect equipment for blind and night flights, Mi-4 helicopters had no equal in that period (mid-1950s) and again brought the Soviet Union to the forefront in this field of aviation technology."
HEAVENLY STATION WAGONMi-4 helicopters – the forerunners of the Mi-8 – for a long time became the main rotorcraft of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the border troops of the KGB of the USSR.
They have found application not only as amphibious transport, but also as coastal-based anti-submarine helicopters (Mi–4M, equipped with search radar and sonar stations, magnetometer, radio hydroacoustic buoys and weapons of destruction - PLAB-MK deep air bombs).
They also served as anti-submarine torpedo bombers. The Mi-4T carried a PLAT-1 anti-submarine aircraft torpedo or half a ton of depth charges. They were aimed at the target by Mi-4M operating together with them. They were also used as air command posts for air support of Ground Forces units (Mi-4KK and Mi-4KU), electronic jamming operators (Mi-4PP), etc.
The Mi-4 also played the role of the first Russian combat helicopter of fire support and an anti-tank helicopter adopted for service. This modification, which received the designation Mi-4AV, in addition to the A-12.7 machine gun, had suspension units for four radio-controlled ATGM 9M17V "Phalanx" and six 16-charge blocks of 57-mm unguided C-5 missiles.
The Mi-4AVS were not built specifically: 185 conventional amphibious transport vehicles were converted into this variant in 1967-1968. The operation of the Mi-4AV allowed us to accumulate the experience necessary for mastering the tactics of specially designed Mi-24 combat helicopters in the future.
The Mi-4 workers also became the main helicopters of Aeroflot, flying on local airlines (passenger Mi-4P), fighting forest fires and agricultural pests, helping to develop mineral deposits and performing other peaceful functions. At one time, there was a helicopter service on the Mi-4 in Moscow, connecting the central terminal with the capital's airports. In Baku, on Primorsky Boulevard, in the center of the city, there was a small heliport from which Mi-4 delivered shift personnel of offshore oil fields to work.
In total, in 1952-1966, aircraft factories in Saratov and Kazan produced 3307 Mi-4 helicopters of various modifications. More than 700 of them were delivered abroad: Albania, Algeria, Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, Ghana, Guinea, GDR, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Cambodia, China, DPRK, Cuba, Laos, Mali, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Northern and Southern Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Finland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Mi-4 in the performance of the "salon suite", donated to India, served as the personal helicopter of the King of Bhutan.
Mi-4 helicopters took part in a number of military conflicts. India used its Mi-4 during the liquidation of the Portuguese colonial enclave in Goa in December 1961, then in the conflict with Pakistan. Wars in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa also fell to the share of these machines.
Under the designation Z-5 ("Zhishen-5", "Zhi-5") and under the name "Xiangfeng" ("Hurricane"), China produced the Mi-4A under a Soviet license in 1958-1979. So the USSR helped Mao to arm himself with the most modern military equipment, until there was a sharp deterioration in relations between Moscow and Beijing.
In total, the Chinese built 545 Z-5. For a long time, the Z-5 was the main helicopter of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA). In 2005, up to 100 such machines were still in operation in the PLA Air Force. In January 1974, Z-5 helicopters landed troops on the Paracel Islands, eventually torn away from South Vietnam. These machines have been used in a number of other armed conflicts.
Today, North Korea remains almost the only operator of Mi-4 helicopters. It is curious that the North Koreans used this car as a ship helicopter on a one-of-a-kind missile frigate catamaran of their own construction "Soho". In 2021, Western sources listed 48 Soviet-made Mi-4As and Chinese-made Z-5s for the DPRK Air Force, which makes up a fair part of the country's helicopter fleet. An enviable longevity, considering that the first Mi-4 took to the skies seven decades ago.
Konstantin ChuprinKonstantin Vladimirovich Chuprin is a reserve officer.
