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Mi-1 HARE - Service

The Mi-1 was operated by the Armed Forces of the USSR, Albania, Algeria, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, the GDR, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, China, North Korea, Cuba, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Finland, Czechoslovakia, as well as the Soviet civil carrier - Aeroflot. It is known that the military modification of Mi-1B was actively used in China in police operations, also the helicopter was used by Syrians and Egyptians against the Israeli army.

In 1954, during the maneuvers with the use of real nuclear weapons near Totsk, the Milev's "units" were used for the first time as scouts of the radiation situation. Some helicopters were used in border troops to patrol the border.

Battle baptism of the Mi-1 was received in 1956 in Hungary, where they were used for communication, surveillance and evacuation of the wounded. After 12 years, they were used for the same purposes in Czechoslovakia.

The application of Mi-1 in the national economy of the Soviet Union began in 1954. From the following year, they were already in increasing numbers entered the civil aviation units. At first they used to deliver mail, then to transport people and small loads. Just like the military, the "unit" became the base helicopter for training civilian pilots.

Test pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union Gurgen Karapetyan, who mastered 39 types of aircraft and flew on all types of Mi cars, won the USSR Helicopter Championship in 1960 on the Mi-1. And this was the first helicopter on which he flew in the Central Aero Club. Flying before on gliders and planes, on Mi-1, he was immediately struck by the difference in the management of these aircraft, Karapetyan later recalled.

"The helicopter has a completely different manner of piloting, and not everyone could cope with it, not everyone succeeded." If on the plane the first flight from the beginner to the flying club occurred somewhere in five or six, a maximum of seven hours of preparation, then the helicopter pilot training program took an average of 12-15 hours, "Karapetyan told the magazine Helicopters of Russia . At Mi-1, he landed in the square and took third place, and the following year he became the champion.

"The Mi-1 was an excellent helicopter - powerful, maneuverable, climbing. But in piloting, sensitive, "sharp." He demanded attention from the pilot, especially early cars, on which there were no hydraulic boosters. On such a helicopter it was very good to learn: who learned to fly on the Mi-1, he will master any other type." Inna Kopets, 1st class pilot, international master of sports.

A total of several dozen helicopters of this type have been lost in the course of the years of operation in various aviation incidents. By the way, during the tests in 1948-1949 two experienced cars were crashed, while in the crash on March 7, 1949, test pilot Matvey Baikalov was killed, who first lifted this car into the sky on September 20, 1948. Later, Mikhail Mil of this will say that "the real chief designer is someone who can survive the first crash of his flying machine and not break down." But he was scared - for three days he did not appear at work.

The last "Helicopter Mils" in the Soviet Union were written off in 1983, and in some armies of the world they continued to serve until the 1990s. It was the Mi-1 that was destined to become the first Soviet serial rotorcraft and the ancestor of a whole series of Mi helicopters, known throughout the world.