A Russian Navy Ka-27 helicopter from the Russian
Severomorsk conducted interoperability deck landing training on board the US command ship on 22 July 2010. Ka-32A11BC multipurpose helicopters have been successfully operated in Portugal for over five years. In 2006,
Kamov won the tender for the supply of Ka-32A11BC firefighting helicopters, to replace
Aérospatiale SA 330 Pumas. Over 240 Ka-32 have been built as of 2019 and have been exported to more than 30 countries; South Korea operates some 60 Ka-32s. In the mid-1990s Russia offset debt to South Korea through supplies of weapons. The Ka-32A11BC features a high
power-to-weight ratio and ease of handling, owing to its coaxial rotor design. The rotors' diameters are not restricted by the presence of a tail rotor and associated tail boom; this facilitates maneuvering near obstacles and helps assure exceptional accuracy when hovering in heavy smoke and dust conditions. The Ka-32A11BC may be equipped with the
Bambi Bucket suspended fire-fighting system of up to five tons capacity. The service life has been extended to up to 32,000 flight hours. Since the 1990s, China has purchased the Ka-28 export version and Ka-31 radar warning version for the
PLAN fleet. Ka-31 purchases were first revealed in 2010. It is believed that Chinese Ka-28s have been equipped with more enhanced avionics compared to Ka-28s exported to other countries. In 2013, Russia tested the new Kamov Ka-27M with an
active electronically scanned array radar. The basis of the modernization of the Ka-27M is installed on the helicopter airborne radar with an active phased array antenna FH-A. This radar is part of the command and tactical radar system that combines several other systems: acoustic, magnetometric, signals intelligence and radar. All the information on them is displayed on the display instrumentation. Ka-32s are used for construction of
transmission towers for
overhead power lines, as it has somewhat higher lift capacity than the
Vertol 107. In Canada, the Ka-32 is used for selective logging as it is able to lift selective species vertically. In August 2013, a Kamov Ka-32, C-GKHL operating in
Bella Coola, British Columbia, Canada, experienced failure of one of its Klimov TV3-117BMA engines (manufactured by Motor Sich in Ukraine). The subsequent technical investigation indicated that there was poor quality control in the assembly of the compressor turbine, leading to failure of the complete unit after several compressor blades separated. Ka-27s were used by the Ba'athist
Syrian Navy during the
Syrian Civil War. On 21 June 2024, a
Ka-29 was reportedly shot down over Crimea, by a Russian
Pantsir-S1, during a Ukrainian drone attack involving both air and naval drones, killing the crew of four. ==Variants==