Sorin Hokum Page

Vietnam. Probably one of the most famous wars in history, the war in Vietnam was a breakthrough concearning aviation technology and military technology in general.
US troops around the figure of 500,000 combatants sweep the Southern part of the country, below the 38th parallel to find and anihilate various factions of communist rebel guerillas known as Viet Kong and some NVA reggulars.
Probably the most efficient weapon of the war was the helicopter.
At that time, helicopters were still relatively new and the US operate in Vietnam alone more than 20 times more UH1H Iroqoius (commonly known by the troops as "Huey") than all the countries of the world taken together (all the choppers ever built elsewhere).
However the Huey, being the first widely-used (combat) chopper had a lot of good and revolutionary characteristics (and was to my opinion and not only, one of the world's best engineering craftsmanships ever developed), but also a small aray of deficits, like lack of field combat resistence (to ground fire) and insufficient weapons (even for the Huey gunships).
As such, the US Armed Forces decided to develop a new concept, called the "attack helicopter".
The first attack helicopter in the world was the Huey Cobra hibrid between the Huey and a funny-looking new design, which didnt lasted long as the real first attack helicoptered entered the scene after, called AH1 Cobra.
The Cobra behaved remarcably well, when used by the USMC in cooperation with special forces members from all the other weapons.
However, after the war in Vietnam, the Cobra now faced a new threat, the one of other country's newly developed attack helicopters, such as the Soviet Mi24 Hind.
Kamov Ka 5X Hokum series
Kamov is traditionally a twin-rotor helicopter manufacturer. From the Ka-24 and Ka-26 agricultural helicopters, to the latest Ka-50, Ka-52 attack helicopters and Ka-60 VIP chopper, Kamov proved to anybody who was still wondering, that twin-rotor helicopters can not only be competitional in today's market, but can also secure their own place among the attack, transport or utilities helicopters.

Weapons Systems
At first, the Kamov company claimed that their helicopter is so advanced, that it doesn't need two pilots anymore (like the usual attack chopper), but only one. This was happening during the late nineties. However, at a closer look, Western engineers discovered that the original Ka-50 attack helicopter was far from being so advanced that the weapons officer becomes a luxury. Newer versions, with updated electronics came out soon after, but those either couldn't claim that they can completely fly their mission with only one man, which would be both pilot, as well as weapons "handler".

Latest Hokum upgrades
After Turkey announced it intends to replace some 230-235 old single-engine AH-1S Cobra attack helicopter in the late nineties, all the manufacturers in the world quickly came up with customized offers for that country.
AH1W SuperCobra, AH-64 Apache, updated Mi-24 Hind F (!) versions, UHU Tigre as well as South African Roiiwalk were offered by everybody in attractive contracts with billions of dollars in off-set contracts.
To a surprize for everybody, Turkey turned on to Romania, being very interested in Romania's new attack helicopter, the AH1RO Dracula. Dracula, being a twin-engine version of the Cobra, at least as advanced as the American King Cobra (latest version of the AH-1, AH1Z/B2), the Dracula would offer the ideal, cost-effective replacement for the AH-1S helos of Turkey, since the pilots were already accomodated on that aircraft.
However, Romania was in a severe economic recession, and by 1999, the Dracula contract, meant to produce 96 AH-1RO attack helicopters at the IAR Ghimbav SA factory near Brasov, for the Romanian Air Force, failed. One year later, while Romania was already starting to recover from the downturn of the previous years, Turkey's economy crashed in a worse way than Romania, only a year before. Therefore, since both the countries have abandoned the Dracula program, the Russians saw this as a window of opportunity to offer their customized Kamov attack helicopter for Turkey.
Dubbed "Erdogan", the chopper wasn't really so different than, let's say, a usual Ka-52, but the Russians say it was especially built for Turkey. The Kamov company, being close to bankruptcy, built one or two models with its own money, and flew them to Turkey to present them to the Turkish officials. However, until today (2003), Turkey has still not chosen an attack helicopter, so the Erdogan might just pass into history.
Although, you never know it, with these contracts... money talk. They always do.

The Sorin Kamov Hokum page is 1999-2003 by Sorin A Crasmarelu from Sorin® Air Group

Pictures by Paul Nunn and others.

hits since the 20th of May 2003 for the Hokum page alone (uploaded at that time)

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