I've identified them, since I'm an aviation geek and figured it was worth figuring out.

At first I thought they were customized Mi-8s (Soviet-era transports; over 10,000 built) and that the seemingly large size was just a perspective/scaling problem with the game but turns out they're not, and that the immense size is actually correct (world's largest production helicopter!). I was close, however. They're Mi-26 Halo helicopters. ("Halo" is the NATO code name. I'm not sure what the Soviets actually named them without doing more research.)

mi-26t.jpg (JPEG Image, 900x612 pixels)

The following is public-domain (thus reprinting is OK) info from Mil Heavy-Lift Helicopters.

MI-26 ("HALO")

* One of the reasons that the Mi-12 was cancelled was because Soviet turboshaft engine development had advanced to the point where the requirement for which the oversized helicopter was designed could be met with a less cumbersome machine.

The result was the Mil "Mi-26 Halo", which first flew in December 1977 and went into production in 1981, the same year it was first publicly demonstrated at the Paris Air Show. The Mi-26 formally entered Soviet military service in 1983.

The Mi-26 design was clearly influenced by the Mi-6, with a similar overall configuration and in fact similar dimensions, but modernized and much more capable. The Mi-26 arguably a more elegant machine than the Mi-6, with the lines of a porpoise. It is currently the world's largest production helicopter.

The Mi-26 is only slightly heavier than the Mi-6, but has a much greater cargo capacity of 20 tonnes (44,000 pounds), as compared to 11.8 tonnes (26,000 pounds) for the Mi-6. The Mi-26 is capable of carrying heavy sling loads, and replaced the Mi-10 as well.

The Mi-26 is powered by two Lotarev D-136 turboshaft engines, providing 8,550 kW (11,400 SHP) each. It is fitted with an eight-blade main rotor, with the blades made from fiberglass with steel spar cores and fitted with titanium on the leading edges. The rotor blades have an electrical de-icing system, and the rotor hub is made of titanium. It is the only production helicopter in the world with an eight-blade main rotor, which Mil officials claims gives a very smooth ride, much smoother than the Mi-6.

The tail rotor has five blades, made of fiberglass. The tail is fitted with a fixed horizontal tailplane to help maintain pitch stability. The incidence of the tailplane can be adjusted by ground crews.

The Mi-26 does not have stub wings as fitted on the Mi-6. It has fixed tricycle landing gear, with dual wheels on each gear. The height of the main landing gear can be hydraulically adjusted to assist cargo loading, and sensors are fitted to the landing gear to give the loaded weight of the machine through a cockpit control-panel indicator. The airframe features built-in handholds and footholds to help in field maintenance. The rotorcraft has a built-in APU, fitted under the flight deck, to provide power to systems when on the ground.

The Mi-26 has a standard crew of four, including pilot, copilot, navigator, and flight engineer. The cockpit side windows are bulged to improve visibility. The cockpit does not have its own external crew doors as does the Mi-6. Three TV cameras are fitted to allow observation of loads. The cockpit is pressurized, though the cargo bay is not. There is a four-seat pressurized passenger compartment behind the cockpit.

There are 40 fold-down seats along the cargo bay, and 60 more seats can be fitted in the center aisle of the cargo bay. There are three passenger doors, two on the left and one on the right, that open downward and have built-in steps. The machine has hydraulically-actuated clamshell doors and a ramp on the end, plus a roller conveyor and two 2.5-tonne (5,500 pound) capacity electric winches on rails to move payloads around in the cargo bay.

   MIL MI-26:
   _____________________   _________________   _______________________
 
   spec                    metric              english
   _____________________   _________________   _______________________

   main rotor diameter     32 meters           105 feet
   tail rotor diameter     7.61 meters         25 feet
   footprint length        40 meters           131 feet 4 inches
   fuselage length         33.73 meters        110 feet 8 inches
   height to rotor head    8.145 meters        26 feet 9 inches

   empty weight            28,100 kilograms    62,000 pounds
   max loaded weight       56,000 kilograms    123,500 pounds

   maximum speed           295 KPH             185 MPH / 160 KT
   service ceiling         4,600 meters        15,100 feet
   range, fully loaded     800 kilometers      500 MI / 435 NMI
   _____________________   _________________   _______________________

Well, that's probably the geekiest thing I've seen/heard today, congratulations. No, that wasn't sarcasm, I mean it, good job.

I haven't even gotten started on the space program yet ;)

*breathe in*

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD!

And proud of it. But "Geek", thank you!

http://www.warplanes.com/customs/

I didn't say it would be cheap... :)

Why is Longbow using Russian choppers?

And what in the world is Arachnos using?

I'm not sure about the hovergizmos (I want a flying car!) but Soviet-era stuff has been resold everywhere since the government subsidies are no longer funding a lot of stuff. Heck, you might be surprised to know that Volkswagen is (or was until very recently; I'm not sure) the largest supplier of cars in the Chinese market!

Sovietski Collection

You know, I'm just positive that the CCCP supergroup on Pinnacle is going to be tickled to death to learn this.

Why is Longbow using Russian choppers?

There are a lot of reasons why they might. They're cheap (relatively speaking), they're sturdy, and they're very large. Few American-built helicopters can come close to that size, and the ones that can are colossally expensive.

Russian equipment: it's the better value. :)

Indeed.

There's a few Western choppers that are big (like the Sikorsky Skycrane, pic below) but generally, the Russians built bigger stuff. Their mindset: "Bigger and sturdier is better" where Western armed forces believed that quality and skill would win wars. So if you want something that isn't going to fail on you, Soviet-era equipment is often a good choice.

pima_entrance.jpg (JPEG Image, 700x494 pixels)

And the Halo's still in production, unlike those aging Mi-8s (at least I don't think they're still made) so finding parts isn't a futile endeavour.

Both that backpack you posted and the Halo are real aircraft ...

1) In general, Paragon City seems to have gotten the short end of the stick with regards to federal funding. Think of how long have Boomtown or Faultline been the way that they are--how long ago was the Rikti War, again? My guess is that the gummint, or whoever funds Longbow, doesn't want to sink that much money into Sky Raider practice targets. Or maybe their version of Q (the James Bond armorer, not the Next Generation guy) likes these choppers for some reason, and they're given leeway with regards to what sort of equipment they use.

2) I dunno if they have a real life equivalent, but the twin-turbine arrangement reminds me a bit of this.

I think part of the reason is while Paragon City bore the brunt of the Rikti attack, they hit everywhere from what I understood, all over the world. so after the war walls were up, they shifted reconstruction elsewhere, afterall the walls would contain them. The War Walls wern't built to protect Paragon City, they were built to protect the rest of the world from what was there. And longbow from what I understand is a quasi private orginization, so using Russian aircraft would fit, cheap to lease and operate (and replace)

Think of how long have Boomtown or Faultline been the way that they are--how long ago was the Rikti War, again?

It's not that. Faultline *IS* being rebuilt, and Paragon City is *trying* to rebuild Boomtown, but they have two major drawbacks.

1) Babbage. That mother of a Clockwork scavages anything that could be used to make more Clockwork, and he'll attack any contruction site that begins before any Heroes or the authorities can even hear about it to try to stop him. He's big and strong enough that normal security guards can't protect any rebuilding effort.

2) The Chosen Ones. The villains of Rogue Isles regularly attack any organized effort to rebuild Boomtown, drestroying supplies, equipment and scaring off the construction workers. Afterall, no construction job pays enough to die for, so getting workers who will stay with the project can (and will) get difficult.

Also, you gotta give the world credit. It lost 80% of the entire world's armed forces in the Rikti War, and who knows what else from the aftermath of it, you gotta assume that most of the rest of the world didn't have it easy in rebuilding. Even though the war ended in 2002, could you see a normal rebuilding effort happening in a (near active) war zone; with armies of neo-facists training in heavy artillery, innumerable gangs claiming cityblocks as their turf, and a near infinite amount of robotic sparkplugs grabbing anything they can to make more, all backed by a huge monster of a bot that won't stay dead and sneak attacks by super powered villains from another country.

Also, if memory serves me, NATO is the organization that supplies Longbow with their weapons and equipment. I'll have to look that up again.

Well, your backstory-fu is clearly superior, since I didn't remember the bit about the world's armed forces in general, and not just the costumed heroes, buying it. That explains a lot.

/em bow
I pride myself in knowing as much about this game as possible, it has one of the more . . . richer backstories out of the games I've seen.

But! Please understand my Backstory-fu is based on their website info and my own estimation on the numbers. I'm not positive that the world lost 80% of it's armed forces. But I can assume it through what they've said on the site itself (Found here) and just extrapolating what they do confirm there.

The world's military was gutted within the first hours of the Rikti War. That would mean it'd have to be, at the very least, 50% loss of military strength. To lose 50% or more of your armed forces would costitute 'gutted', and during the war (6 month time period), normal human military lost 5 soldiers for each Rikti soldier. Only where Heroes participated in the battle did human soldiers fare better. Without Heroes, we could barely hold our ground without being hit hard.

Now think of 5-to-1 loses for a 6 month period. That's a heafty number, adding to that the gutted military from the beginning. Also consider that while there were Heroes all over the world, the majority of the world's population of super powered being was in Paragon. That leaves a lesser number of Heroes to support the military across the globe, and although the Rikti numbers were less outside of Paragon, they were still in a great enough number and strength to 'gut' the military, simultaniously, across the globe.

Constidering it all, a loss of 80% of the military would be a conservative number, if you factor in the Heroes supporting normal military actions throughout the entire war. Since the website doesn't show the exact percentage of losses for the military it takes fan-fuled guesswork and estimations. Some can be more precise than others, and the numbers I mentioned are just from what I see for myself. Offical numbers would make it far more precise, which might be gained through a thread on the fourms, but that's something for another time.

Heavy, lift, baby! Heavy, mothingloving lift!

I've got the magazine and I've read the rest of the story. The thing is massive and has a much heavier payload than the Chinook. The cargo pay is as large as that of a Hercules transport plane.

Heh, just the other day I was in Cap au Diable, hanging around by the black chopper at the airport waiting for my mentor to recall me to the mission door, and I got to wondering what those little twin-prop cabin planes are that are parked on the ramp over by the control tower.

(If you're curious, they appear to be Cessna 404s.)

yeah, 404's sounds about right. no registration numbers though. I would imagine that flights between the mainland and the Rogue Isles are prohibited anyway.

I think they're inflatable decoys. I mean, it's kind of a stretch to accept that all the general aviation operating out of Cap au Diable International is the exact same make and model of aircraft, all painted exactly the same color. Even if everyone on the island is a drug smuggler, you'd think at least one of them would be a rebel and have a King Air or something. :)

Bah. I want to see a Beechcraft Starship! (never mind that Raytheon decided they're too expensive to support and is buying back and destroying them all... grrr)