Thread by @duke_garland_2

Join me in a descent into madness as I try to make progress in identifying yet another wreckage of a russian Ka-52.

This time, "the one with the cross and the 'gator graffiti"

First of all, its location was already known, described as near the Sukhanove village in Beryslav region of Kherson oblast. But the date is not known. It was discovered after the "right bank" of the Kherson oblast was liberated, so that would likely give september-november 2022.

Now, I was spending my Sunday crosschecking obituaries of dead russian aviators (as one does) when I found a new piece of information on one of them.
Butorin (see quoted), a Ka-52 navigator, died 12.10.2022... near Sukhanove village in Kherson oblast

Now, 12th of October is the date when UAF reported 4 helis taken down in 18 minutes and ended the day with +5 in the helis column of the stats, but whether or not that is true, we do have a match! I don't think it's likely there's a second undiscovered Ka-52 near that village

There are multiple strong sources for Butorin serving in 55 OVP (Korenovsk). So all that's left is to identify a Ka-52 airframe from 55 OVP that would fit the wreckage. Is that even possible? I think so. Because of this piece

It's okay if you don't recognize it. There's a trick: it's upside down. And the thingy you see sticking out at the top is usually sticking out at the bottom – of the tail rudder. Some light or whatever. Also, c/n is usually written at the bottom, but broken off on our piece :C

For clarity, i've reconstructed what the full piece would look like, if it was whole. We're seeing the right side of the airframe. Unfortunately, depending on which frames i take, i get a slightly different result (because it wasn't filmed directly from above in a single shot).

But it doesn't really matter. The camo is painted in the same scheme, i.e. the general splashes of color are the same, but they are applied by hand and vary a lot actually. Being identifiable just like zebra's stripes or fingerprint patterns.

Now the madness part. All we have to do is take the photos of all the airframes in 55OVP, their right sides, that show the rudder and find a match. And woo boy, does that take time. And the toughest part isn't even the comparison, but finding the photos in the first place

Results. Let's go. Twitter allows just 4 images per tweet.
RF-13400 (70 red), RF-13401 (71 red), RF-13402 (72 red), RF-13403 (73 red)

RF-13409 (74 red) and RF-13411 (76 red) are known losses from march, skipping.

Here are RF-13410 (75 red), RF-13412 (77 red), RF-13414 (79 red), RF-13415 (80 red)

RF-13416 (81 red), RF-13434 (82 red), RF-13422 (83 red), RF-13423 (84 red)

RF-13424 (85 red), RF-13425 (86 red), RF-13426 (87 red), RF-13428 (89 red)

And finally RF-13429 (90 red).
I also skipped RF-13413 (78 red), but not because I wanted to. Unfortunately, I only have photos showing it from the left side. Couldn't find any of the right side showing the rudder – so far.

I do not think any of them make the match, unfortunately. Some look closer than others, though. Some are way off. Or it might be that missing one RF-13413 (78 red). Or some other airframes from 55 ovp that i just don't know about and haven't listed (@GuyPlopsky, help)

Of course, there's also the case that the pilot from 55 ovp _could_ have been in an airframe _not_ from 55 ovp. So maybe I should widen this search to all camo ones. But for now I'll just stare at these ones some more.

the elusive 78 red doesn't look like it's matching any better than most others.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Kovalev's obituary mentions he lives & does stuff in Korenovsk, definitely served there at least in the past, but then went to Crimea (i.e. 39ovp Dzhankoi – many of its Ka-52 come from Korenovsk). Not sure yet of his unit on death.