WWRSimon,
Here's the formety very secret story about how the HIND arrived at Spadeadam. I thought long and hard about revealing it, but prompted by your clearly interested and informed question, I think that the time for transparency has arrived.
So, yes, I bought the HIND (an export Mi-24V HIND-D msn 33245, produced in 1982) on eBay from Othman and Abdul's scrapyard outside Ramadi for a winning bid of £4404.21 + import duty + shipping & VAT in late 2004.
This particular HIND attracted me because it is a combat veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, and played a critical role in resupplying the Iraqi Republican Guards 4th Armd Div HQ with Johnnie Walker Black label and hard core porn in 1985-86. Sadly, none of the scotch or the porn remained on board by the time I took delivery.
Incidentally, Abdul is a nice bloke - he and Otham even threw in a free 1983 Iraqi AF desk mahogany HIND-D desk model because they thought I "was cool, like J-Zee".
Upon recepit of the HIND, I decided to donate it to Spadeadam so that people like you could ask boneheaded questions on Pprune for months about stuff that
(a) they could call Spadadam's
PR office about directly
or
(b) may be F*ck all to do with them in the first place!
S41