Russia considers designing ‘doom’s day’ helicopter

Russian Defense Ministry is thrashing out design assignment for the new generation helicopter-based airborne command posts.

TASS reports as citing Alexei Komyakov, Director general of the ‘Polyot’ aviation enterprise, that “State defense procurement program in fact comprises a project of such a helicopter”.

The project was first heard of in February of 2016. It was then reported that experts of ‘Polyot’ enterprise had made a trial model of equipment for the new generation airborne command posts.

It should be noted that Soviet Union used to have a number of rotary wing vehicles operated as airborne command posts. For instance, the Mi-6 (also known as the Mi-22) as well as the Mi-8 were used as command posts. The ‘heavy weight’ Mi-26 was also tested for that purpose.

However, the aircraft-based airborne command posts became more popular. Such craft were named the ‘doom’s day’ planes because they were designed to be used in the nuclear war conditions providing all ground command structures are forced out of action. The most famous representatives of the class are the US Boeing 747-based E-4B and the Russian Il-86-based Il-80.