On April 14, 1953, the first flight of the military Ka-15 helicopter took place - the first serial helicopter of the N. I. Kamova
On April 14, 1953, test pilot Dmitry Konstantinovich Efremov in Tushino near Moscow lifted a new rotorcraft into the air. During the war years, the tester Konstantinov was engaged in the delivery of weapons and ammunition to the partisans. He perfectly understood how important and indispensable a helicopter is in modern warfare, because, unlike an airplane, a machine without wings and with a horizontal propeller was capable of vertically landing and taking off from the smallest areas, literally from forest clearings or narrow decks of warships.
The creator of the new machine was the design team led by Nikolai Ilyich Kamov. Before World War II, Nikolai Kamov was engaged in the creation of "autogyros" - the first hybrids of an airplane and a helicopter, from which modern helicopter construction later developed. It was Nikolai Ilyich Kamov who suggested using the word "helicopter" to denote a new type of aircraft, which has forever taken root in the Russian language.
The end of the 40s of the XX century became the era of the birth of the helicopter. For the first time in battles, this new type of aircraft was widely used by the Americans during the Korean War in 1950-1953. In the mountains and on the islands of Korea, the US army and navy successfully used the "helicopters" of the Russian émigré Sikorsky.
Within a month after the start of use, helicopters capable of taking off from the decks of ships and landing in any mountain gorges showed high efficiency and became literally irreplaceable. On September 12, 1950, American Brigadier General K. K. Jerome, in a policy memo to high command, described the new type of aircraft as follows:
“The helicopter in Korea is extremely well received; anyone who is asked will be sure to tell you an incident, highlighting the important role that the helicopters played in this. Reconnaissance, communications, visual observation on the flanks, airlifting patrols from one important point to another, postal service and supply of forward posts - these are the tasks that helicopters perform. There is no doubt that the staff's enthusiastic reviews of helicopters are fully justified … We must spare no effort to get as many helicopters to the front as possible, giving them priority over any other weapon … Helicopters, more helicopters, as many helicopters as possible to Korea."
Soviet generals and admirals, who had considerable experience in the battles of 1941-1945, closely followed the enemy's combat experience in the Cold War and did not want to lag behind the Americans. The Soviet Union needed its own helicopters - transport and combat.
Since 1950, the first mass multipurpose helicopter Mi-1, created by the design bureau of Mikhail Leontyevich Mil, has been mass-produced in our country. But the Mil helicopter, excellent for its time, was precisely a multi-purpose helicopter intended for both military and civilian use. For purely military purposes, especially for the tasks of the Navy, a more compact and at the same time more powerful helicopter was required.
Helicopter "Mi-1". Photo: bazaistoria.ru
The creation of just such a purely military helicopter was the responsibility of the Kamov design bureau. The first prototype, the Ka-8, took off at the end of 1947. The next, more advanced machine, the Ka-10, took off in August 1949. The Ka-10 became the first Kamov helicopter produced in a small series of 15 aircraft in 1951.
Tests at sea on ships of our fleet showed that a more powerful machine is required for the needs of the Navy. In October 1951, Nikolai Kamov was summoned to the Kremlin to see Lavrentiy Beria, who demanded that the development of a new helicopter be completed within a year. Nikolai Ilyich said that he needed at least two years, to which Beria strongly advised him to “apply to the social security service,” that is, either solve the problem or leave … In the mouth of Beria, such a “proposal” sounded too dangerous a hint.
Despite all the technical difficulties, Kamov's designers were able to solve the most difficult task in the shortest possible time - to create a helicopter that is both small and powerful. The Ka-15 helicopter, the design of which began in August 1950 and was completed by the spring of 1953, turned out to be much more "powerful" than its serial counterpart, the Mi-1.
The Ka-15 was intended for ships, so it was designed to be very compact. It was not easy to place in a small volume all the equipment needed to search for submarines. The length of the Ka-15 was almost half that of the Mi-1.
The flight performance of the Ka-15 obtained during the tests turned out to be higher than the design ones. The vehicle carried a payload of 210 kg with a take-off weight of 1410 kg and an engine power of 280 hp, while the Mi-1 took 255 kg with a mass of 2470 kg and an engine power of 575 hp.
The final state tests of the Ka-15 took place in Feodosia from April 15 to May 11, 1955. In 1956, the serial production of these machines began at the aviation plant in Ulan-Ude in Buryatia. A total of 354 helicopters of all modifications were built. This was the first series of Soviet helicopters for purely military purposes.
The helicopter could take off and land from very limited areas on the decks of warships at sea. One Ka-15 could take on board only two sonar buoys for tracking submarines. At the same time, the control equipment was located on the second helicopter, and the means of destruction (depth charges) - on the third.
So the Soviet Navy received the first helicopter complex in its history for detecting and destroying enemy submarines. In addition, the Ka-15 helicopter could be used as a scout, communications vehicle, artillery fire spotter, etc.
Already in the early 60s, the Ka-15 was replaced by new, more advanced Kamov helicopters. Already today, the former design bureau of Nikolai Ilyich Kamov is one of the leading Russian manufacturer of combat helicopters. The best rotary-wing aircraft of the Russian army are rightfully considered the Kamov Ka-50 and Ka-52, the descendants of the small Ka-15, which first took off on April 14 exactly 63 years ago.
