Mil Mi-8 in Taupo

[deeknow]

No doubt a bunch of you North Island lads have driven past this beast parked on the side of the road near Huka Falls, but this was the first time I've ever stopped in to take a squiz so figured I should share some pics. It's mounted up on a hill beside the sight-seeing operator http://www.helicoptertours.co.nz at Huka Falls (who by the way do a very fair sounding $99 pp 10min flight in a R44 up and down the river between the falls and Taupo itself). The lad in the office was quite happy for us to climb in and have a poke about, so we did...

One hell of a machine...


Makes for a good umbrella...


We're going down.. we're going down... Ejectski !!!


My co-pilot, with her official Russian Army Issue comfort bear...


Room to move, you could throw a party in here that Donald Trump would be happy with...


Overhead panel (at this point I started flicking switches, the missus freaked out saying "dont, it might start" .. bless her


Some other central panel wotsit.. it's all Cyrillic to me .. Sean may be able to illuminate us???


If anyone wants higher res copies of these check them out in my Flickr set, you can d/load from there, see...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/deeknow/s ... 742550036/

[Naki]

Thanks for posting. Been past quite a few times and wondered what it is like inside. Didn't think it would be like that. Thought it would be more cargo configured

[deeknow]

Yeah I'm picking it was one of the ones that were doing logging, maybe it turned up with civvie config when it arrived in country and they re-fit it after it was retired? Possibly any entirely fictional pax config just for looks.

[Ian Warren]

Scary .. not the co-pilot with the Bear .. just the passenger coming racing up with arms wide open ... so scary

[SeanTK]

I wonder what the history of this one is, because it looks like part of the overhead panel is actually in Spanish.

The last shot you have there is actually of the autopilot/stability augmentation system (depending on how you define the former vs the latter). You can turn on pitch, roll, or yaw channels all at once or independently, and you can either control movement using those knobs, or you can use the physical controls, and the system will maintain the new attitude, heading, etc.

Great shots, and it looks like it was an enjoyable time out!

[deeknow]

Thanks Sean, knew you'd have an idea

So, turns out the rego is YS-1006P and regarding the Spanish overhead, don't know how reliable this is but according to a pic on airliners.net (linked following)...

QUOTE

Apparently this aircraft was used to ferry Fidel Castro about in Cuba ... until 1993 when it was sold to a heli logger in El Salvador before being brought here to New Zealand .... The instrument panel is mostly in Spanish with a splash of English and Russian.[/quote]

see: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Mil-Mi-8MTV...05128d64bc3b59b

Last edited by deeknow on Mon Aug 25, 2014 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (SeanTK @ Aug 25 2014,2:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wonder what the history of this one is, because it looks like part of the overhead panel is actually in Spanish.

Spanish , very south South American .. these helicopters come from the region least registered, hence the Portuguese/Spanish translation

[HamiltonWest]

Great Pics Dean Here & on Flickr