Mil Mi-24

The Hind

“The only gunship that brings its own squad.”

Mil · helicopter

Length

57 ft 5 in (fuselage)

Wingspan

56 ft 5 in (rotor diameter)

Max speed

173 kts

Range

243 nmi

Ceiling

18,860 ft

Engines

2x Klimov TV3-117 turboshafts (2,200 shp each)

Crew

Max passengers

Typical config

2 crew + 8 passengers

Built

2,600+

Most attack helicopters seat two. The Mi-24 seats two crew and eight passengers — a gunship up front with a troop cabin in back, a combination nobody else ever mass-produced. Over 2,600 have been built since 1969, and the ones painting on Western feeds today are civil-registered warbirds and museum flyers kept alive by people who love the engineering.

Fun fact

Soviet crews nicknamed the Mi-24 the 'flying tank' — its rotor blades were built with titanium spars tough enough to survive hits from heavy machine-gun rounds.

How to spot one

Tandem double-bubble canopy, drooped stub wings, gear tucked away in flight. Western-registered examples fly the airshow circuit — that's your catch window.

Crews call it

The Flying Tank

Sounds like

A heavy five-blade slap over a twin-turboshaft whine — you hear the mass before you see it

One might be overhead right now.

Bogey turns the The Hind from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.