ZVEZDA 1/48 Mi-8T Aeroflot Arctic Transportation

One of my favorite helicopters and I've been waiting for a long time for a decent and affordable kit in 1/48 scale. As soon as Zvezda issued this kit I had to order one.

My father used to fly Mi-8 for a while (Croatian Air Force Transport Squadron) so I had few chances to be a passenger in my childhood. One of happiest events in my life was back in 1996., it was still post-war time in Croatia and military was still much active. During the summer vacation I was to visit my grandparents who lived some 500km away and my father just called me one day and told me to grab a bag and wait at local football field in city centre. There were lots of young folks training football and at some point military Mi-8 landed in the middle of the field to pick a 15 y/o kid (me). I felt like a king that day.

I knew Zvezda would not disappoint. The kit was a pleasure to build (as well as other Zvezda's kits I've been working on). Large parts of the fuselage fit really well without gaps or need to modify parts. Only had minor issues fitting cargo rear doors, but I think parts in my kit might be deformed for some reason. Everything else is just "fire and forget". Zvezda offers decals and instructions for five variants, two Russian military versions, one Slovak Air force, one Cuban Air Force, and one orange and blue Russian Air Force version. Due to current unfortunate events I decided to make either Croatian Air Force variant or civilian one. Unfortunately Croatian Air Force offers boring one tone color scheme that was no challenge at all, so I decided to go with civilian Aeroflot version without national markings. I printed my own decals. External fuel tanks are detachable (connected with neodymium magnets).

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