Tema: Helicòpteros de ataque de la AE, deuda pendiente

Hablando del Aguilucho, vieron el nuevo helicóptero Iraní de Ataque? Parece un machete del Aguilucho!!!

Saludos
JM

MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA
Date Posted: 29-May-2009
Jane's Defence Weekly
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Iran unveils Shahed 285 armed helicopter

Robert Hewson Jane's Air-Launched Weapons Editor
London

Key Points
• Iran has displayed a new armed helicopter, which appears to be derived from the elderly Bell Model 206 JetRanger design
• The helicopter was shown without a targeting or sensor system, but could have potential future capability, because one prototype was flown carrying a dummy Kosar 3 anti-ship missile

Iran's Shahed Aviation Industries Research Centre (SAIRC) has handed over a number of newly developed Shahed 285 armed helicopters to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to press reports on 26 May.

The Shahed 285 is a previously unknown variant of the Shahed helicopter family, all of which are derived from the elderly Bell Model 206 JetRanger design. Drawing on the extensive resources of the Iran Helicopter Support and Renewal Company, the SAIRC has established a limited production facility at Isfahan. The Shahed 285 is the first military helicopter it has built in any quantity.

Analyses of the images displayed on Iran's PressTV show that the Shahed 285's fuselage has been substantially redesigned. Now a single-seat aircraft, its forward section has been narrowed to reduce its head-on profile. The angular slab-sided helicopter has been armoured, with flat plate-armoured glass fitted to the cockpit.

Iranian sources say the fuselage and rotor blades use composite materials. Some of the outer skin panels may be composite, but it is not clear whether SAIRC has this capability. The helicopter is almost certainly powered by a Rolls-Royce 250-C20B turboshaft, like its predecessors: a single-engined design that leaves it vulnerable in combat.

The SAIRC showed its first armed Shahed, the Shahed OH-78, in 2006. This was a basic civil-standard Shahed 278 fitted with an undernose machine gun and unguided rockets. While the outward shape of the new Shahed 285 is different from the OH-78, it is not clear if there has been any immediate boost to its combat capacity.

Like the OH-78, the Shahed 285 has a single 7.62 mm machine gun, which closely resembles a Russian PKTM, that is housed in a crude dustbin turret under the nose. The Shahed 285 features short weapon pylons, each with a single (articulated) suspension unit for simple unguided weapons, like Mk 40 2.75-inch rockets.

Prototype aircraft appear to be carrying seven-shot LAU-131 launchers and TV footage shows them firing rockets.

The green-painted 'Army' Shahed 285 prototype has no targeting or sensor system. In 2006 SAIRC displayed plans for equipping its helicopters with a basic FLIR ball turret but the Shahed 285 shows no evidence that one has been fitted. It is not clear where one could be fitted on the small and heavily modified airframe. The cockpit appears to use standard analogue equipment, dominated by dial instruments. There are signs that the pilot's helmet has been fitted with a tracking system to control the gun.

However, in what may point to a significant future capability one Shahed 285 prototype has flown carrying a dummy Kosar 3 anti-ship missile. This grey-painted 'Navy' helicopter appears to be fitted with a small search radar instead of a gun turret. The radar-guided Kosar 3 is Iran's version of the Chinese-developed C-701R missile. Ship- and ground-launched versions of the weapon are already in Iranian service.

SAIRC has shown missile-armed helicopter designs before, but they have been twin-engined concepts, such as the Shahed 478. If the Shahed 285 has the ability to carry and properly target a weapon like the C-701, it is much more than a curiosity.


Iran's Shahed 285 has no electro-optical targeting system, although a tracking system to control its gun may have been fitted to the pilot's helmet (FARS News Agency)
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