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Firefighting aircraft directory/Switzerland/Kamov Ka-27/HB-XKE

Aircraft reference

HB-XKE

KAMOV Ka-252 · Heliswiss International

Helicopter bombersSwitzerland
Photograph of HB-XKE

Kambui · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Identity

Mission
Helicopter bombers
Registration
HB-XKE
Mode-S address
4B3DC4
ICAO type
KA27
Model
KAMOV Ka-252
Operator
Heliswiss International
Country of registration
Switzerland
Home base
Bern-Belp · Switzerland

Kamov Ka-32, mostly flown as an aerial crane.

About the Kamov Ka-27

Water-bombing helicopter

It uses a suspended bucket or an installed tank to take water from a nearby source and place short, precise drops, including in steep or confined terrain. Depending on its configuration, it may also move crews, equipment, or rescue teams.

What this type can do

The firefighting aircraft that broadcast as KA27 are generally civilian Ka-32 variants. Their coaxial rotors give stable hovering without a tail rotor, useful for lifting a large bucket and placing precise drops in confined or mountainous terrain.

This describes the type’s usual firefighting capability; it does not prove what this aircraft is carrying or doing now.

Kamov Ka-27

The Kamov Ka-27 is a military helicopter developed for the Soviet Navy, and as of 2024 is in service in various countries including Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, China, South Korea, and India. Variants include the Ka-29 assault transport, the Ka-28 downgraded export version, and the Ka-32 for civilian use.

ICAO type · KA27

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Flight history

Every sortie this server has recorded, reconstructed from the positions the volunteer ADS-B network heard. Select a row to isolate it on the map.

Reading the archive…

Photographs

Freely licensed images are stored with this project; the rest are shown from the site that publishes them.

  • Photograph of the aircraft

    Jimmykreislauf · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

  • Photograph of the aircraft

    Jimmykreislauf · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

  • Photograph of the aircraft

    Jimmykreislauf · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

  • Photograph of the aircraft

    Jimmykreislauf · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

  • Photograph of the aircraft

    Jimmykreislauf · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

  • Photograph of the aircraft

    Filippo Novello · All rights reserved · Planespotters.net

Elsewhere

Live tracking & flight history

  • Flightradar24Commercial flight history, airport pairs and scheduled times.
  • ADS-B ExchangeUnfiltered live globe, including aircraft other trackers hide.
  • adsb.lolThe volunteer network this map reads its trajectories from.
  • FlightAwareRegistration record and recent activity.

Photography

  • JetPhotosScreened spotter photography, newest first.
  • Planespotters.netPhotographs alongside the production and delivery record.
  • Airliners.netLong-running photo archive, often the oldest images of a frame.
  • Wikimedia CommonsFreely licensed images — the ones this sheet is allowed to host.

Registries & airframe records

  • Airframes.orgAirframe history: serial number, operators, incidents.
  • adsbdbOpen registration database, in JSON.
  • hexdb.ioMode-S address record used by the tracking community, in JSON.

Type reference

  • ICAO type KA27ICAO Doc 8643 entry: designator, wake category, engines.
Reference data assembled on July 27, 2026 from Wikimedia Commons, Planespotters. Run pnpm fetch:aircraft --refresh to rebuild it.