Video: An Mi-6 with a big load
 

Impressive lifting ability...

https://www.facebook.com/reel/982551574133192

It's hard to get a sense of the size of the Mi-6 until you are close to it. Here's one I saw at the Hanoi Air Force Museum:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fb038ae5f7.png
Note that not all Mi-6 had the stub wings of this VNAF example.

The gross weight of the Mi-6 was nearly 100,000 lbs - that's the same as four DC-3s!

One of these visited Farnborough for the airshow. It kept busy after the airshow doing various 'demonstrations' until somebody in Russia phoned up and asked where their helicopter was because it was long overdue with them and the crew weren't too keen to go back.

Think the Farnborough aircraft was the Mi-26 which is a size bigger I believe. Certainly a large piece of kit.

I think so. Not much international exchange during the Mi-6 era. I’m guessing Farnborough 1990, soon after Helitech 1989 https://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=42738

I was there

I recall seeing photos of the older generation large Mil helicopters at airshows in the west. So I Googled it. If we can trust AI better than my memory:

"Soviet Union’s civilian sector brought an Mi-6 to the European exhibition circuit—such as the 1968 Farnborough and Turin airshows—to showcase its record-breaking heavy-lift capabilities."

By "civilian sector" I guess that means in Aeroflot colours?

You can't trust AI I'm afraid; foreign participation at Farnborough in 1968 was limited to several aircraft with British major components such as engines (including the unfortunate RR Tyne-powered Breguet Atlantique which stalled and crashed at the end of its demonstration...). No Mil Mi-6, no Soviet participation at all - Farnborough became properly international in 1970 or 72 and the Russians attended for the first time in 1988.

The Mi-26 was at Farnborough '92.

There is some footage from the 1992 Mi-26 display here:

Perhaps doing this will sort out the issue with the link in my previous post....

Photos from Helitech, Redhill, 1989 (couldn't find video): https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/airshow...ech%20-%201989

The flying displays were commentated by the great Shawn Coyle.

It was more than just airshows. PHI had a MI-10 and another MI model delivered to a hangar in LA in the late 1960s. Was told it was a who's who of the western helicopter industry that came to uncrate it and assemble it, to include a couple black vans with suits in the beginning. They ended up finishing the assembly and painting them both in yellow and black. The MI-10 was flown to SA for a job but broke down on the way. However, once they fixed it, the job was over and it was to be ferried to Alaska for the pipeline job. But again went AOG somewhere in Central America where I think the fuselage still resides. Here's the only pic of it that I have access to, however, there are more pics with some showing a side view with a big "PHI" on the side.

As to the MI-26, the Peruvian military got their 3 aircraft the year before I moved/worked there and kept one at the same base we were located at. At times, they would use them to relocate entire villages back to the jungle using a slide-in pax module complete with airline type seats, bathrooms, and luggage storage. We also once had a need to charter a C-130 to move some equipment from a remote area, but nearest runway was 9 km away from the camp. The local base commander found out and offered his MI-26 since it had the same payload as the 130 and he could land at the camp! But only if I had 3000 gal. of turbine available to top off the tanks for the return flight. Heck of a helicopter.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fcb02c54f6.jpg

Blimey the Mi-10, forgotten that! During a leaflet lifting run round the London airline offices in the mid 1970s, Aeroflot gave me a very nice book illustrating all their activities which included pics of the 10 with a coach on the platform (can't recall if the old folks were still aboard on their day trip to St Petersburg-by-the-Sea) and also images of the mighty flying meccano set Mi-12...

Oddly enough I don't think it mentioned spying activities using the glazed navigator noses on many of its transport aircraft..

Might still have it in the loft.

Incidentally, back in 1999, I spent an hour at Hayward Municiple Airport while a mate was getting a check flight, looking at a twin rotor helicopter of the intermeshing kind on the far side but not fully visible or identifiable even with a pair of binoculars. Definitely not a Kaman Husky or K-Max but possibly a Kamov of some type. We drove round to take a look but it wasn't visible at all from outside. Just curious as to what it was, possibly just a film mock up.

Ok, thanks. So the photos I had a mental image of may have been from the Paris airshow. Heli-archive certainly has photo of one reportedly at the 1965 show, and this time not sourced from AI:

https://www.heli-archive.ch/en/helic...icles/mil-mi-6