I would like to resuggest an interesting unique Romanian helicopter IAR-317 “Airfox”. This is a light attack helicopter made by Industria Aeronautică Română (IAR) in 1980s, when Romanian authorities sought to provide the country’s armed forces with military equipment, mainly of its own production. The idea was to design a helicopter specifically for CAS missions, which unlike the Soviet Mi-24s or other similar helicopters wouldn’t have redundant capability to carry troops, allowing to decrease the weight and focus more on the anti-tank capabilities. IAR-317 was based on IAR 316B (Romanian licensed-built variant of the French SA.316B Alouette III). The helicopter had a tandem cockpit with a crew of pilot and operator-gunner. Large glass canopy provided very good visibility for the crew. Behind the cockpit radioequipment and fuel tanks were located. Cockpit and fuel tanks were protected by armour. From its predecessor IAR 316B, IAR-317 received Artouste IIIB gas turbine engine of the French company Turbomeca, producing 640 kW. The “Airfox” helicopter was designed to fight tanks and other armored targets on the battlefield, for the fire support of ground forces, reconnaissance and surveillance. Only a single prototype was built, it made its first flight in 1984 and a year later it was represented on Paris Air Show. Unfortunately Romanian Militaries quickly lost interest in this project and its proposition for export remained unsuccessful. Despite that in WT it should become a very nice 8.x nimble helicopter. Also it looks like a baby-Mangusta)
Specifications:
Spoiler
Armament optionts are listed below (provided by @TeodorSan ):
I love the 4x mgs and the ATGMs.
Since this was made by Romania, which nation’s tree should it be in?
German already has several helis. Should this go into Italy? It would seem to fit well there.
If Italy gets Romanian-Hungarian subtree, it would be perfect to locate IAR-317 as well as other IAR helicopters in Italy. It depends on how Romania is going to be implemented, I wish it gets represented as a subtree at least, though if not, 317 should go to France as it was with 316B.
This is wrong. The IAR-317 being just a modified IAR-316B, it uses the same engine, which is the Artouste IIIB.
And for the picture that shows the armament options, it is also fake/wrong.
Number 5. Flare/chaff dispensers
Number 9. Landing gear skids
Number 6. 165 lit (33 US gal) long range external tank
Number 14. Emergency flotation gear
Never had them and no proofs (pictures of video) it ever had.
Number 10 and 11. 50kg and 100kg GP bombs
Never had them mounted, only showed at the Paris Air Show in 1985.
Probably also not even real bombs and just mockups.
Doubt it even could carry them, but I’m not sure
Number 13. UV-4-130 launchers for 130mm rockets.
I think the author of the book confused them with the “UB-4-57” which is just a quadruple 57mm rocket launchers taken from the L-29, which is also present in the IAR-316B.
Some websites also claim the possibility of the installation of 2 AAM launchers, though I haven’t seen any evidence.
Never had them, the only “proof” of those are just Photoshoped CA-94 (Romanian license made 9K32 Strela-2).
