The combatant units of Russian Air forces within the shortest period will be equipped with new combat helicopters Mi-28N, the chief of the press-service of the Air Forces Aleksandr Drobyshevsky reported on Thursday.

According to him, at the session of State Commission in the headquarter of Air Forces under the chairmanship of the Air Forces commander-in-chief Army General Vladimir Mikhaylov the decision about finishing the first stage of government tests of Mi-28N was made.

The preliminary conclusion "makes possible to start the series production of helicopters at the plant "Rosvertol" in Rostov-on- Don and carry out a re-equipping of combatant units of Russian Air forces with new helicopters Mi-28N within the shortest periods", the chief of press-service reported. According to the data of Russian Air forces, the effectiveness of new machine 4-5 times exceeds the existing models.

In the course of tests, and taking into account the task of bringing technical characteristics of the helicopter to the higher level, the state commission made the decision to conclude the three year contract about delivery of helicopters between the Russian Ministry of Defense and Rosvertol. At the first stage Air Forces will get over 20 helicopters Mi-28N.

At the end of December of 2005 in Rostov the first series Mi-28N took off the land. Today this machine performed 140 flights, 136 of them were credit flights. Such figures allow beginning the series release the machine.

Due to a series of the technical solutions the helicopter Mi-28N does not have analogs in the world, as the Air Force officials note.
sections: Politics, Region News
areas: Central region