Back Mil Mi-32
1982 - project

Mil Mi-32

A project of the heavy flying crane helicopter with a take-off weight of 140 tons intended for transporting civil and military technics in Siberia. Not built.

V.Miheev "Mil MVZ - 50 years", 1998

Mil Mi-32

Comments1-20 21-40
Chuck Anderson, e-mail, 18.12.2007reply

This is a very fascinating machine, and it would have been quite a sight flying overhead. If the Mil Mi-32 had gone into full-scale production and operational service, and remained in production for many years (like the Lockheed C-130), I wonder what improvements they would have made in that time. I've always liked Soviet and Russian helicopters, as they have so many interesting types, and they've always pushed the boundries of rotary-winged flight.

Patriot, e-mail, 23.10.2007reply

Truth is the machine is massive, not something that will work all too great. Not to count the fact the power needed to produce it, the rotors come way to close to one another so there's an accident waiting to happen if something goes wrong. Then what is so massive that you need to lift with that....Besides we have the chinook and it's replacement the Boeing Osprey to lift things. So this plan would most likely be a bust. Also not to count the fact something that big is easy to shoot down from the ground, or air.

Oscar, 09.10.2007reply

lol. Come to think of it, you do have a point. This beast would be a magnet for enemy fire and if any one of the blades had a transmition failure then it would crash, but I guess the same is true of any helicopter. It may have potentially as a civilian heli crane that could lift enormous objects where no ground crane could but as I said before, if the jobs pay is less or equal to the aircrafts running cost then it simply isn't worth it.

Mirvra, 28.09.2007reply

Correction riou we're talking about a helicopter and actully i can think of one thing this design whould be good for it chould help getting heavy armour around when the are of landing was safe it chould help tanks get agross rivers that are too deep or mountains that whould take days to get past otherwise but i agree that it whouldent be suited for lifting in armour into hot zones

riou_, e-mail, 26.09.2007reply

yep... i agree on the a /m guys. carrying a tank with this chopper? holy smoke. you better be joking. just a shot from a flak in the engines of this metal, and it will come back to earth like junk. well it can be used in civilian purposes but the design looks like a big flaw of metal flying up in the air.
sorry for the political views. you guys should work your problems, coz were talking bout an aircraft here.

Surkill, 19.09.2007reply

This is one of the most unusual and interesting designs I have ever seen. I agree with kolshya, its not practical for military applications. It would be a magnet for AA fire.
It could be useful for other purposes such as large construction projects. It is highly creative.
If the Russians do want to have a good military, they should improve their military logistics.

kolshya, 10.09.2007reply

Oscar, would you really air lift tanks into a battle? Generally speaking, it is unsound to carry anything heavier than a light APC under a helicopter. If you wished to carry tanks when this would have been built, you would have been more likely carrying T80s and T72s, weighing 46 and 42 tonnes respectivley. Where this helicopter may have been planned to carry 140 tonnes weight, the idea of transporting heavy tanks through the air in anything less than an Antonov-124 becomes a little impractical. As a guy of military experiance I'm not sure I could see much use for it on a battlefield, it'd be a magnet for flak, small arms and SAMs. If it's anything like a lot of Mil manufactured helicopters then it would have very exploitable weakpoints. I can imagine if one rotor fails then the other two would not be able to compensate due to the shift in the centre of mass. If you were a lucky passenger or pilot then you land with just a bump, but more likely it would become an incredibly expensive explosion!

You're right in saying it would be very useful, but probably more for a civilian or engineering role. I don't think this is really cut out for military service :)

Oscar, 10.09.2007reply

I think this helicopter would be practical if the job it was doing could cover the cost of its maintanence requirements. If a battlefield commander needed to have heavy loads such as tanks air lifted into battle, this would be the rotorcraft for the job.

p.s All the people who have left partiotic, arguementative (and stupid) comments are as bad as each other. Every country in the world has a combination of smart people, stupid people, greedy people and good people and to say that one country is more stupid than the other makes you no better than the people you're saying are stupid. I personal believe that you (anyone who has left an arguementative comment) all need to grow up.
By the way, the Vietnam war was a mistake on the United States behalf. Those soldiers may have called themselves the good guys but actually they spent their days there raping the women and dropping napalm and a variety of other bombs on innocent people. This doesn't make the whole of America bad, it show that there were bad individuals and mistakes were made.

If the Soviet Union didn't collapse, i think they should have made this aircraft, not only because it's potentially practical (if used for the right jobs) but also because it would advance and revolutionize helicopter technology for the better.

kolshya, 07.09.2007reply

that's an interesting design, but i agree with murch, it's not a very feasable design.

creative though, I'll give them that!

milly 0's, 23.08.2007reply

thats a BIG helicopter

Mr. 9MM, e-mail, 02.12.2007reply

Very freaky-deaky, would have been cool to see flying above you. Prolly would have scared the hell out of a lot of people to.

Benny, e-mail, 26.07.2007reply

Has anyone seen any more blueprints?... anywhere?
...Or were you too busy flaming each other?

emmanuel_evangelist, 20.06.2007reply

Watching this machine lifting up would have been rather impressive, I would say...
On the other hand, I must agree with Platon and mack: this design, applied in a context different to that in which it was conceived would be simply impractical in all ways.

And kids, this is not a lecture on politics... Leave the ideological crap for other websites!

john, e-mail, 10.02.2007reply

how come the yanks havent tried to build one like this, after all they are supposed to be bigger and better than everyone else?

ifuckrussian girls, 13.03.2007reply

Maybe because this design is not practical.

murch, e-mail, 24.03.2007reply

Why would the Americans waste their time on something that has NO feasibility? This was a total waste, and probably put a lot of people in the grave due to waste of money!!

WTF, 13.04.2007reply

E.C. are you high or something?
What has Americans got to do with this?
This was (or wasn't...) a russian prototype helicopter.

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