A long while ago I mentioned the Mi-8 Hips leased by the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Recently, a newspaper article was publishing asking questions about the helos. Ok, Canada's military procurement and spending is always political, but what was really interesting was the quote "The Mi-17s operate in Canadian military markings and are flown by Canadian Forces pilots, said Rozenberg-Payne." Huh? I thought the Mi-8s were in civil markings with civil registrations. Turns out Canada has traded in the leased Mi-8s for leased Mi-17s and they are carrying CAF markings. See here for a picture. So the Mi-17s are designated CH-178 and the serials for the four aircraft are 178404 to 178407. (What happened to 178401 to 178403?) I understand these are Kazan Helicopters Mi-17-V5 versions of the Mi-17. Cool, eh.
Modeler's Note: Hobby Boss makes a very nice Mi-17, but it does not have the correct configuration to build the CAF variant. (What's new.) There was a conversion of the kit to the beaked nose/rear ramp Mi-8/Mi-17 in a recent Scale Aviation Modeller International.
4 comments:
I'll have to look for that article.
David,
It is SAMI Vol. 16, Issue 6, June 2010 with a A-7 on the cover.
The article is also on line on Ken Duffey (Flankserman)' site.
http://www.flankers-site.co.uk/modl_mi-8.html
Someone posted pics of the Canadian Mils on UKAR recently, but they were taken down for OPSEC very quickly - I didn't get to see them.
Could 178401-3 be the original aircraft?
Dave,
That makes sense other then there were supposed to be 4 of the original Mi-8s...
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