| Mi-22 | |
|---|---|
| Role | transport helicopter
Type of aircraft
|
| National origin | Soviet Union |
| Manufacturer | Mil |
| Status | Unrealised project |
| Developed from | Mil Mi-2 |
The Mil Mi-22 (Cyrillic Миль Ми-22) was a 1960s Soviet project to develop a military transport helicopter.[1] It was a development of the Mil Mi-2, but did not enter production when the Soviet military selected the Mil Mi-24 for this role instead.[1] The Mi-22 designation which had become unused was later re-applied to a completely unrelated design, an airborne command post variant of the Mil Mi-6.[2] This first Mi-22 concept was a Soviet attempt to create a helicopter in the Bell UH-1 class.[2][3]
In 1964,[1][2] motivated by a perception that the Soviet military was losing interest in helicopters,[3] Mil began work on improvements to the Mi-2 design, and built mockups exploring two different paths.[1][2][3] One of these led to the development of the Mil Mi-3.[1][2][3] The other, designated V-20 (Cyrillic В-20), was to have a fuselage stretched by inserting a plug, and equipped with a wide, sliding door.[1][2][3] The Mi-2's three-bladed main rotor and wheeled undercarriage were to be replaced by a four-bladed rotor and skid undercarriage.[1][2][3] Calculations showed that the Mi-2's Klimov GTD-350 engines would be insufficient for the new design, and Mil started to study a range of other gas turbines for the V-20's powerplant, including the GTD-550, GTD-10, and Glushenkov GTD-3, plus also the American Continental T65 and French Turbomeca Astazou.[1][2][3] Rather than being an improvement of the Mi-2, the V-20 had become a practically new design.[4]
Mil founder Mikhail Leontyevich Mil and designer Marat Nikolayevich Tishchenko unsuccessfully attempted to secure support from the Soviet Ministry of Aviation Industry to develop the design,[2] but in 1965,[4] the Soviet military became interested in the GTD-10 powered version of the V-20 as a helicopter capable of deploying a motorised rifle squad.[1][2][3] The designation Mi-22 was applied at this point.[1]
Development proceeded as far as testing the new four-bladed rotor fitted to a Mi-2 in 1971,[2] but a complete prototype had not yet been built before the Mi-24 was selected to fulfil the same requirement in the early 1970s.[1][2] In actual service, the Mi-24 was hardly ever deployed as a troop carrier, negating the purpose for which the Mi-22 had been developed.[3]
General characteristics
