Black Shark
Junior Member
Since Kamov has designed the WZ-10 it wouldn't be to far fetched if we assume that they had also to work on armor and overall protection since all this work has to be done to get evident numbers to balance the airframe properly.
In attack helicopters protection against NBC contaminated environment there are very different philosophies in west and east.
For example every single russian Attack helicopter has sealed cockpit and the air conditioning along with any vents and seals which have traffic of outer and inner atmosphere are equipped with NBC sensors and the cockpits have always overpressure NBC measurement which is by far the best method considering that helicopters already fly in rather thinner air and overpressurized cockpit will have even better NBC performance than tanks do, even when the cockpit might have a penetration and air is leaving it, it still provides highly protection against agents or fall out. For the case that overpressure isn't suffecient in altitutes like 4km since this about the limitation of the compression systems which are rather small and have to be kept small, the crew has 2l oxygen tanks which hold for 1.5 hours, this is also to be used when the helicopter is hardly damaged and smoke is entering the cockpit to prevent inhale of toxins.
On western helicopters like AH-64, they have no overpressurized method they use the M43 NBC masks which are defined by code FM3-4 NBC protection of troops field.
Quote from the FM3-4 NBC protection for US and NATO troops field manual.
For each crewmember there is also a personal emergency equippment with injectors against chemical agents like nerve agents, but except of that there is no bigger system to prevent NBC threats entering the cockpit and effecting the crew.
The AH-1W/S/Z crew use either M42 or the very old M24 NBC masks and have also oxygen tanks for live support, no overpressure just sealed cockpits.
Same goes with minor alterations for EC-665 Tiger crewmembers and CSH-2 Rooivalk crew.
AFAIK for A-129 crew there is so far only a gas mask that is attached to oxygen only no filtration and only covers the nose and mouth leaving eyes open which can be effected by several different nerve agents. No overpressure neither collective, but i don't know it for sure couldn't find much information except what i already told.
The only project that was for a full NBC protection for attack helicopter aircraft was for the RAH-66 with the M156-66 NBC protection which was at the same time Crashworthiness for the faces of the pilot/WSO a reinforced nose and mouth piece with additional eye protection that also provided crashworthy protection for the face and was useable with HMDS (Helmet Mounted Display System), the crash worthiness was given when the face was about to smash into the cyclic stick or any controll panels which studies on AH-64A crashs state that a significant number of injures after crashes were caused by lack of crashworthy protection for the face and additional injuries and even near death were caused due Apaches IHADDS (HMDS) eye pieces that caused eyelose, fractures of bones and even inner bleedings on eyes. Another crashworthiness report showed contradictions to the former report of AH-64A crashworthiness of injuries which were caused from flight control instruments such as HOTAS where in number of accidents even the printings and labels from the controlls were "marked" into the faces of the pilots. Buttons and sometimes letters or even syllables were visible on the skin and deaths were also connected with IHADDS and lack of face protection.
Report on crashworthiness and mentioning of face injuries caused by crashes and equipment.
What i can say is that NBC protection with the traditional helmets are not possible without overpressure or sealed cockpits (collective protection) if NBC protection was within the requirements to design WZ-10 by Kamov than it should be also overpressure, lets hope so.
