Mil Mi-22 (1965)

The Mil Mi-22 of 1965 was a Soviet project for a military transport helicopter and the first aircraft to carry that designation. It grew out of mock-up studies begun in 1964 as improvements to the Mi-2, one of which, the V-20, had a stretched fuselage, a wide sliding door, a four-bladed main rotor and a skid undercarriage. In 1965 the Soviet military took an interest in a version with the more powerful GTD-10A engine that could carry a squad of mechanised infantry at an all-up weight of about 4,300 kilograms. Work got as far as mock-ups and a 1971 test of the new rotor on an Mi-2, but no complete prototype was built before the Mi-24 was chosen for the troop-carrying role. The number was later reused for an unrelated Mi-6 command post helicopter.