
Moldova Shuts Down Bootleg Helicopter Factory - cstross
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/06/30/moldova-shuts-down-bootleg-helicopter-factory/
======
hristov
The Ka-26 is an old design that is long out of production in the official
Russian factories. It turns out that while many more capable helicopters have
been designed after it, the Ka-26 is ideal for one particular narrow job --
crop dusting.

The features that make ideal for this are unlikely to come up in another
helicopter -- it is very small and yet it has twin coaxial rotors. Apparently
the coaxial rotors combined with small size make it good for crop dusting
because they spread out the downdraft and thus ensure that the helicopter does
not destroy the plants it is supposed to be dusting.

As such it is unlikely to be replaced by a new helicopter. There are some new
small helicopters being designed but none of them have twin rotors, because
twin rotors are complex and it makes little sense to put them on a small cheap
helicopter.Crop dusting itself is a relatively small market and it is unlikely
to create sufficient demand for the design of a new helicopter.

Then how did the Ka-26 get its twin rotors? Well, for one the Kamov design
bureau seems to really like twin rotors. Also, there may have been some Soviet
military requirements that make them desirable -- such as being able to
operate on city streets, being able to land on a truck, etc.

Furthermore, as these things go, crop dusting is relatively safe helicopter
activity. There are no passengers, you have to do it in perfect weather
anyways, even a slight wind will result in your pesticides being blown away,
you do it at low altitude and over generally flat ground with few obstacles.

So while there is a problem with ignoring all safety regulations for
helicopters, this is probably not that dangerous.

So, in general, this is a lot less crazy than it first appears. It seems like
there was a small market demand for a niche application, but the demand was
not sufficient to go through all the safety inspections or to use an existing
Kamov factory. Yet the intended use is inherently much more safe than the
usual helicopter mission so the clients were willing to take the risk.

~~~
DavidPeiffer
A note about helicopter crop dusting that surprised me as an Iowa resident.

Around here almost all crop dusting is done by plane. I've seen one helicopter
in the last ~10 years. The helicopter had an accompanying tank truck on a
gravel road. The helicopter would land on top, refuel or refill the spray,
then continue operating! I was very surprised to see it operating like this.

An airplane would have needed to fly 12 miles each way to the nearest airport.
Quick look online says they commonly fly at ~180 mph, meaning ~8 minutes
wasted round trip. I'm guessing the distance from the airport wasn't the major
motivation behind the helicopter, but rather nearby power lines.

~~~
ponker
The biggest advantage of helicopter crop dusting when fixed-wing is an option
is that the helicopter dusting gets more "into" the plants because the
helicopter rotor actively blows the shit downwards.

~~~
Scoundreller
Also useful for cherry crops: a rain at just the wrong time can ruin an entire
crop.

There’s basically fleets of helicopters on standby around crop areas that are
just there to fly above cherry trees and blow off the moisture if it rains
late in the season at night.

~~~
chris_st
Had a friend who worked for the US government, in one of their farmer support
areas. Told me that it's not unusual for them to be used to keep crops from
_freezing_ , oddly enough.

------
plextoria
I was born in the village next to the bootleg factory. Heard about the factory
a couple years ago when they were looking to hire mechanics. I couldn't
believe they decided to open it illegally and found the whole story hilarious.
The story is still unfolding and the owner claims that the factory was in fact
a research facility and no helicopters were sold. I don't believe that :)

The facility is located in the commune of Răculești, district Criuleni. It's a
couple of kilometers away, but not in the disputed territory of Transnistria
as falsely claimed in another comment. The owner and the factory workers on
the hand, are residents of Transnistria. Why had they decided to open the
factory on the "legal" side of the border - I have no idea. Transnistria is
notorious for illicit activities including drugs and guns smuggling and would
have been the perfect location for a bootleg factory.

Anyway, Moldovan Prosecutor's Office is known to take bribes and this "shut
down" sounds like a deal gone wrong between prosecutor mafia and the factory
owner.

~~~
plextoria
Exact location of the factory, for the curious:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/R%C4%83cule%C5%9Fti,+Moldo...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/R%C4%83cule%C5%9Fti,+Moldova/@47.2718001,29.0559949,440m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x40c95f38dc385767:0xcf7aa5974c63efb9!8m2!3d47.2713437!4d29.06763)

There used to be ruins of an unfinished facility in that place, walked past it
many times as a kid. Never imagined they would build helicopters in there.

------
orbital-decay
It's not that crazy if you consider that it was a part of the Soviet Union,
where these helis were designed and produced at two different factories. Ka-26
is a fairly old and relatively simple helicopter with two radial engines, no
complex turbomachinery. They probably did this with the old Soviet equipment
and documentation, both either smuggled or maybe even bought legally. The
experts from Buryatia or Bashkortostan who produced them back in the USSR
might have also been involved in this.

So my guess these are not "fake" helicopters but probably "real" Ka-26s, it
was just an unlicensed production. Still impressive though.

~~~
na85
The real issue (IMHO) is highlighted in the article:

>All the helicopters were produced without the necessary permits and documents
of origin for the parts and equipment used.

In aerospace it's common to speak of certificates of conformance, which is a
legal attestation from the manufacturer that the part is of genuine origin and
complies with the specification from the aircraft's type design. The
manufacturer is periodically audited/assessed for their quality control
practices and parts are routinely tested to ensure they are airworthy.

The issue here, as per the above quote, is that they were probably using
bootleg parts from random Chinese suppliers, which might be no big deal but
might also have not been heat treated properly, for example, in order to save
manufacturing cost.

If parts aren't compliant with the spec you can have structural failures in
flight which is of course no bueno.

So yes, these are probably "real" Kamovs in the sense that they're probably
built from real Kamov blueprints, but what many people outside the industry
don't realize is that aerospace design and manufacturing encompasses much more
than the blueprint. The whole program from the drawing board to the assembly
line to the in-service maintenance work has to be a cohesive whole in order to
produce an airworthy product.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
In practice though, that’s only a _real issue_ if the wrong people die in a
crash as a result of non-compliant parts.

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
Bullshit populist conspiracy drivel. Any plane or helicopter crash is big news
and gets scrutinized quite extensively.

------
W-Stool
You get to a certain age where you think you've seen everything. Then
something like this comes along and you realize you haven't seen anything.

~~~
cs702
I can't help but wonder: _Who, exactly_ , wants to buy helicopters from such
fly-by-night operators?

For there must be demand. Otherwise all the planning, capital raising,
investment, hiring, construction, accounting, etc. necessary for starting and
operating this bootleg helicopter factory would have never been done in the
fist place.

Who would want to buy bootleg helicopters? Is it developing countries seeking
to save a bit of money by buying them in the black market? Or two-bit
dictators who cannot buy helicopters through more, ahem, official channels due
to trading sanctions? Assorted unsavory characters from the criminal
underworld? Self-made entrepreneurs who want to get a good deal on a "genuine-
looking" Soviet helicopter?

Surreal.

~~~
moftz
The parts for the helis might have come from an old factory that shut down,
the parts might have been bought very cheap. Someone then decided to build
some helis with the parts but clearly decided to forego the permit process and
just forge all of the paperwork the customer gets. Someone buying them might
have just been expecting a good deal on an older design but still legit helis
or they knew they were not legit and were planning to resell them to other
groups. I'm not sure anyone would actually want to fly in a heli they knew had
forged paperwork.

~~~
latchkey
Like trying to save money on a motorcycle helmet.

~~~
manquer
Perhaps if they were part of organized crime groups and/or people in the
disputed region and are unable to buy and maintain a legal helicopter, it
might be of consideration.

The buyer is not _necessarily_ sitting in it, people have built submarines
powered by humans to smuggle drugs after all.

------
yingw787
There's some quality (?) bootleg stuff out there today. The other big one I've
heard of is narco subs, not semi-submersible, but fully submersible:
[https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Ecuadoran-
su...](https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Ecuadoran-submarine-
called-a-game-changer-in-drug-1611558.php)

It's rather fascinating what the human mind can do with money + necessity.
It's a reminder that great engineers can come from anywhere (and hopefully
brought to work on nice-people things).

~~~
01100011
The recent spike in radioactive isotopes had me thinking of this. If someone
has a modest amount of money and no regard for safety, it's actually pretty
easy to assemble a reactor.

There are a lot of things we think are out of the reach of individuals or
small groups of people, but the fact is someone developed many of these
technologies in more primitive times without access to modern materials or the
internet. We live in an age where morons can make armed drones or cruise
missles, or, apparently, counterfeit helicopters.

~~~
nicoburns
> If someone has a modest amount of money and no regard for safety, it's
> actually pretty easy to assemble a reactor.

My understanding is that building a reactor is fairly easy (possibly even in
reach of a smart high-school kid). But that getting hold of the enriched
uranium required to run a reactor is (thankfully) rather difficult due to
trade and production being heavily controlled.

~~~
Khelavaster
But enriching uranium isn't rocket science. You gassify uranium as uranium
hexifluoride, centrifuge it, extract the heavier (uranium-238) fraction, and
then turn the uranium-238-enriched gas into solid uranium oxide (recycle the
fluorine).

~~~
01100011
It's not rocket science, and there are other methods available as well. It
does take a lot of energy and time though. Probably easier for a low tech
setup to just bombard U-238 with thermal neutrons.

Once you get enough U-235, just use beryllium to reflect the neutrons back in
and add a moderator(water, graphite, etc). Just don't be anywhere near it when
it finally goes critical.

------
AdrianB1
The quick explanation for some of the questions I've seen on this story:

1\. what is the purpose of building an aircraft that you cannot register?
Cigarettes contraband, they fly low in mountain regions between Ukraine and
Romania to smuggle cigarettes that are a lot cheaper in Ukraine because in EU
taxes are up to 80-90% of the price. We had one of these helicopters crashed
last year just doing this.

2\. How do they know how to build it? It is not the latest high end technology
and there are lots of people that used to work in aviation factories in the
region; Ukraine, Romania, Serbia had aircraft factories with thousands of
employees. Also the people in the trade of maintaining these helicopters
(registered mechanics) have the knowledge and most of the tools needed to
assembly it. It is a small, light helicopter, we had one built (legally) in
our small hangar by 2 people in their free time.

3\. Why don't they sell them legally? Because if you are in the business of
selling helicopters to people doing contraband, you don't want to attract any
attention, you want to operate under the radar. It is more profitable to sell
these to smugglers than to the official market, otherwise the original
manufacturing plant would still be selling these with better efficiency of
scale.

4\. How hard is to do it? In the Transnistria region, it's easy, it's almost
lawless. In other places, it's fairly easy to set up such a shop in a lesser
populated area if you have a small crew that you can trust. You can eventually
have some semi-legit business or repairing agricultural equipment in case
anyone sees you carrying stuff around and asks what is that: "tractor spare
parts". Police in this area is corrupt, sometimes they are part of the
operation providing cover and protecting from investigations, it's just a
matter of money changing the right hands.

------
trhway
>Most of the people suspected of being involved in the production and assembly
process, including the organisers and heads of the illegal operation, are
residents of Moldova’s breakaway Transnistrian region.

this and Donbass are regions where reality is significantly distorted from our
typical everyday reality. In particular, laundering helicopters (and the
components for them like engines) through there wouldn't look as anything
exceptional. It is strange that it was located on Moldova controlled territory
though - while right on on the border with yet still not in Transnistria
proper.

Update: According to the shop owner it were just full-scaled models which he's
been using to develop his innovations, and he does have some patents for
various equipment for helicopters - in Russian
[https://dumskaya.net/news/vladeletc-vertoletnogo-zavoda-
pod-...](https://dumskaya.net/news/vladeletc-vertoletnogo-zavoda-pod-
kishenevom-zay-119133/)

~~~
FpUser
> _this and Donbass are regions where reality is significantly distorted_

Reality either exists or not. It has no states. Hence can not be distorted.

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
Black hole. Gravity lens. Perception...

------
AndrewZM
What this entire story is missing is that the guy is an engineer and he was
building full scale models (according to his story) to test his research, he
already has some patents from 2015, which kinda make his story a bit more
credible. Knowing how competent the police is in Moldova, it will not surprise
me that they just fucked up...

The other question is, who in their right mind would buy such helicopters(if
you can call them helicopters :D )? I wouldnt even get close to one...

~~~
netsharc
I wonder if they're trying to scam baddies (who else buys copters in the black
market?), they could deliver these copters with some final assembly required,
e.g. to install the blades of the main rotor, maybe leave 1 technician with
the clients, or just hire a technician who isn't in on the scam and let him be
the discoverer of the bad news...

Alternatively, these are capable copter builders with parts which have "fallen
off the back of trucks" in Russia (or even an inside group stealing parts from
the official factory).

~~~
mtnGoat
Scamming bad actors out of lots of capital can be bad for ones health.

------
burger_moon
What a crazy story. Would be interesting to read a more in-depth article on
underground helicopter manufacturing.

I wonder how that would work in the US? I don't think there's anything illegal
about building your own aircraft. That's basically what the EAA is all about I
think.

[https://www.eaa.org/eaa](https://www.eaa.org/eaa)

~~~
tlb
You can build your own aircraft to fly yourself. You can't sell finished
aircraft without certification.

* complete rules are extremely complex.

~~~
kgilpin
You can build and sell experimental aircraft. Here’s a marketplace of them:

[https://www.barnstormers.com/category-18671-Experimental.htm...](https://www.barnstormers.com/category-18671-Experimental.html)

However, there are many commercial uses which experimental aircraft are not
approved for. This mostly limits their practical utility to personal use (aka
“fun”).

~~~
alasdair_
That site is fantastic. Second ad on the list: “... please check with your
wife first last guy didn’t $2700”

~~~
nl
And this one:

 _Was stalled on downwind turn, fell through electric wires, hung by last
wire, communication cable, airplane came to full stop approx 10 ' off ground,
rolled over on its back and dropped upside down on a clump of small scrub oak
trees. No prop strike and no injury to pilot._

------
supernova87a
I suppose the major problem (aside from questionable parts, etc) is that in
some factory processes, especially in less developed places, the documentation
only captures so much of what has to be done to make something work right.

It usually turns out there's some knowledge during assembly that is preserved
by someone or something that's not in the documentation, that is insidiously
hidden until you find out later it's gone wrong. And when someone tries to
copy the process off of the pure documentation (or worse, just reverse
engineering the thing with no documentation), that unwritten process is lost.

And then, you're going to get someone down the line who wonders, "what's this
unnecessary part for?" and removes it or ignores when it's missing, and
suddenly your rotors start flying apart after 100 hours or something.

At least when the knockoff Hasselblad (Kiev) cameras failed, it just led to a
stuck film crank that could be reset, or when a Lada broke down it could be
pushed. With a helicopter, not so forgiving...

~~~
quallzone
More info on Kiev: The old Salyut-C and Kiev-88 medium format camera system
was not created or sold as a knockoff or "replica" of the Hasselblad system.
The body is admittedly a Soviet-era clone of the original Hasselblad 1000F,
but with its own interchangeable body parts and lenses.

Also, the lenses were primarily made in a former Zeiss factory in Jena, DDR
(East Germany). Some "CZJ" (Carl Zeiss Jena) have decent optical quality,
while others are not. An old Shutterbug article jokingly stated that the
amount of lens dust and quality control was dependent on the Vodka content of
the workers that day. Over the years, I owned 1 Salyut-C and a couple of
Kiev-88 bodies and lenses, and I can confirm that build quality was variable
in my experience. Some US-based camera shops had a side business performing
Kiev-88 CLA (cleaning, lubrication & adjustment).

This was for an Officially produced product with relatively few moving parts.
So I cannot imagine the build quality for these counterfeit helicopters!

------
razvvan
might be worth pointing out that this happened in Transnistria
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria))
a part of Moldova that has stronger political ties to Russia than to Moldova.
It's complicated.

~~~
FpUser
Why is it "complicated"? And why does that matter at all? Oh and BTW most
people were from Transnistria, the factory itself is on Moldova's mainland.

~~~
ummwhat
Transnistria claimed independence a while ago. Only Russia acknowledges their
claim but de facto Moldova has lost the monopoly on violence in that small
region.

Transnistria is basically following the same pattern as North Georgia or East
Ukraine. Step 1 is a "separatists" group pops up overnight and declares
independence. Step 2 is the totally legit "separatists" happen to do exactly
the things Russia would do if they had annexed the place per se. Step 3 is
Russia acknowledges the "independence" of the "breakaway" region and also
denies being behind the separatists to begin with. Step 4 is Western leaders
send strongly worded letters and symbolic sanctions. Step 5 is everyone
forgets and the relationship status is set to "it's complicated".

This is how Russia invades without invading. The relevant term of art is
"hybrid warfare".

~~~
manquer
Perhaps so, Russian actions covert or overt are not justifiable.

However it should kept in mind all of these areas _were_ part of Soviet Union,
it is not unreasonable for pockets of broken up CIS states to want to split
away, they could be ethnically Russian minority being oppressed and want to
join Russia or be independent even., their problems may be _genuine_.

~~~
gdy
"Perhaps so, Russian actions covert or overt are not justifiable."

Why not?

------
vuln
Man if only Amazon had a helicopter section.

~~~
ogre_codes
Yeah right, these would be right at home next to all the other counterfeit
crap they sell on AMZN.

------
amoitnga
im originally from moldova and this is so weird seeing somthing like this on
hn homepage ... so ridiculous.

article doesnt mention the city, does it? would be interesring to know if
thats transnistria, in which case its pretty much russian and moldova has
mostly nothing to do with it.

~~~
nneonneo
It doesn’t mention the city but does say this:

> Most of the people suspected of being involved in the production and
> assembly process, including the organisers and heads of the illegal
> operation, are residents of Moldova’s breakaway Transnistrian region.

------
throwawaysea
Am I missing something? Is this easy to do? Doesn't manufacturing a helicopter
require very expensive and sophisticated equipment and supply chains? I'd
think that would leave fingerprints all over.

On the other hand, when I watch videos of boat building, it seems like it can
be done by small shops with a few people. So maybe there is some equivalent
tier of manufacturing for aircraft?

~~~
bserge
Apparently the design is very simple, and I guess reliable?

It would be extremely easy to build a WW2 era propeller plane, and people
built oceangoing sailboats by themselves.

I found the story of this boat particularly interesting:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cythera_(yacht)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cythera_\(yacht\))

------
c-smile
USSR's machinery design principles at their best. You can build and/or repair
helicopter in kolkhos's garage.

Yet, this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5IRykZsVBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5IRykZsVBw)

Kalashnikov "foreva"!

------
m0zg
Mind bogglingly stupid to shut something like this down. Legalize it instead.
Government should fill out the paperwork at their own expense, and compensate
the owners of this sufficiently so that they could continue this manufacturing
business in "above board" ways.

~~~
smabie
Yeah why not just fine them and make them pay taxes? Better for all parties
involved.

~~~
m0zg
Exactly. The right response would have been "I'm not even mad, this is
amazing!" It's not like Moldova is a powerhouse of industry or anything.
Anyone who managed to pull this off deserves a shot at turning it into one.

------
heavenlyblue
Is this really smuggling a helicopter or a helicopter smuggles itself together
with you?

~~~
arprocter
I was amused the charge is apparently 'preparing to smuggle aircraft by two or
more persons'

This isn't your normal one person aircraft smuggling operation

------
costea123
I'll be honest, this is bad that it's illegal and ofc uncontrolled helicopter
building is really dangerous. But damn as a Moldovian I feel so proud that
we're actually building something xD

~~~
bserge
There's a lot of enterprising people trying to build stuff, sadly it's simply
easier to do it in the other Moldova - and if you go there, why not go all the
way to western Europe, more funding there :/

Solar panel/battery companies seem to be popular, they assemble a lot of
things on the spot. Having access only to the internal market is a big
limiting factor imo.

------
gumby
Many in the Bay Area may not realize that East Palo Alto (back when it was
part of Menlo Park) was a hotbed of helicopter development and manufacture.
1940s/1950s

------
duxup
Were these bought by folks looking to get a cheaper helicopter or bought
officially and the price difference embezzled by someone?

------
runawaybottle
They probably colluded with state operators to funnel budgets for these things
knowing they won’t ever be used.

This probably happens a lot everywhere with everything. It’s only a matter of
time until a small town has a million dollar cloud services contract for
their, you know, digital services and stuff (to backup files ... and stuff).

~~~
cat199
or colluded with the wrong state's operators.. backstory on this one I'm sure
could be an interesting movie or 3 ..

"Most of the people suspected of being involved in the production and assembly
process, including the organisers and heads of the illegal operation, are
residents of Moldova’s breakaway Transnistrian region."

------
zed88
Damn I would love to have one, I mean who wouldn't love a bootleg helicopter
right? Here is an engine start video that I absolutely loved
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1xKhc77VXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1xKhc77VXk)

------
blhack
For reference, it doesn't look like this helicopter has been in production for
almost 40 years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-26#Development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-26#Development)

~~~
paleogizmo
Per Wikipedia this uses reciprocating engines which I assume require less
tolerance than turbines. Part of the mystery (probably) explained

~~~
baybal2
Actually it's the opposite. Turbines are much less sensitive to that, except
for balancing, and bearings quality.

------
keithyjohnson
Hai davai!

~~~
amoitnga
hahahha... thank you for this one

------
ddmma
They should call themselves a startup and improve that model full electric

------
mam2
How in life do you decide to open a shop of fake helicopters ?

------
mrlonglong
Now I've seen it all! Fake helos :-D

~~~
jacquesm
What's fake about them?

~~~
treeman79
Certification?

~~~
SpaceRaccoon
So they're not fake, but uncertified. They still likely fly.

