FPV drones: Low‑cost threats to Russia's prized Ka‑52 copters
The war in Ukraine has produced astonishing events that will be discussed at military academies for decades. One of the more intriguing cases involves attempts to hunt down assault helicopters with FPV drones, which are inexpensive compared to helicopters worth tens of millions of dollars. We present a case of a Russian Ka-52 Alligator narrowly avoiding a hit.
Ukrainians first demonstrated the use of FPV drones to hunt helicopters during an operation in the Kursk region. The first drone victim was a Mi-28N helicopter, and the second was a transport helicopter, the Mi-8AMTSh.
In the meantime, a few more machines were added to the list, but it doesn't include Russia's latest helicopter, the Ka-52 Alligator. These are very rare and valuable machines, and each loss poses a significant problem. The video below shows how a Ka-52 Alligator narrowly missed an FPV drone named Glovo.
FPV drones as anti-aircraft weapons
FPV drones are gaining significance among Ukrainian and Russian forces as a low-cost alternative to guided weapons. These unmanned aerial vehicles, along with the necessary striking means, cost only around $2,000 to $3,000 and can destroy equipment worth millions of dollars.
The simplest way to incapacitate a helicopter is to hit the tail boom or tail rotor, which balances the torque of the main rotor. After such damage, the helicopter begins to spin uncontrollably, leading to a crash. Only the Russian Ka-52 Alligator, equipped with coaxial main rotors, is resistant to this type of attack and can only be disabled by hitting the engines or main rotor.
A significant challenge, however, is that helicopters can reach speeds exceeding 125 mph, which are unattainable for FPV drones. As a result, drone pilots must attack from the side, predicting where the target will be. Although this task is not easy, it is achievable and poses a serious threat to pilots, as helicopters are often not equipped with radars for early threat detection.
The only form of protection may be electronic warfare pods that can create a defensive bubble around the helicopter with a diameter of about 980 feet, in which control signals do not work. However, operators never know if they will always be effective, and some types of drones using deployable fiber optics or artificial intelligence algorithms completely resist them.
Ka-52 Alligator — a Russian uniquely engineered machine
The Ka-52 Alligator is a modernized version of the Ka-50 helicopter, which was developed in 1991. Its unique design results from the use of coaxial main rotors and the side-by-side seating arrangement of the pilots, which differs from the classic tandem arrangement in other combat helicopters, such as the American AH-1Z Viper, where the pilots sit one behind the other.
Typically, the Ka-52 Alligator is armed with a 30 mm 2A42 automatic cannon mounted on the side of the fuselage and six pylons on the wings. The two outer pylons are often used for mounting electronic warfare pods or 9K38 Igla anti-aircraft missiles, while the four inner ones are intended for heavier arsenals.
On board this helicopter, you can find AT-12 Vikhr anti-tank missiles with a laser guidance system, Kh-25MP anti-radar missiles, along with bombs and unguided S-8 rockets. Furthermore, the helicopters have L-370P2 Vitebsk defense systems designed to jam radars and blind incoming missiles using lasers. The price of one Alligator unit is about $16 million.
