Happy Halloween! For this ghoulish day, I’ve found something truly scary. A video that actually made me say “Nope, I’d rather walk.” Say hello to the Kamov KA-26, NATO codename “Hoodlum.”
Now, honestly, in the shot above, the KA-26 isn’t all that scary. A little oddly proportioned, sure, but not too odd looking. It’s only when you find out that the entire back half of the helicopter can be removed that things get weird. Here’s the little KA-26 in its true form.
Okay, so this thing looks like it was the product of a drunken hookup between a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane and a landspeeder from Star Wars. It is kind of cool though, with those massive pods on the sides each housing a Vedeneyev M-14 9-cylinder radial engine. Hence the distinctive noise that you’ll hear in the video below.
“All right, what’s so scary about the video?”
Look, I’ll admit I don’t know that much about helicopters. Maybe the procedure shown around 0:38 on the video is perfectly normal, and finger-tightening rotor bolts is A Thing. Or maybe (hopefully) those bolts got tightened, safety wired, and secured off camera. All I know is that I wouldn’t want to be the passenger in that little Hoodlum while the pilot takes that thing through its paces. That’s about zero margin for safety if one of those blades decides to depart the rotor hub.
Have a good day. I’m going to dress in a cheap black suit, put on my aviator shades, and ask every kid in a Marvel superhero costume if they’ve heard of The Avengers Initiative.