Few aircraft have collected as many names. Soviet crews called the Mi-24 the “Krokodil” (crocodile), partly for the reptilian camouflage schemes and partly for the long, armoured, snout-like nose of the tandem-cockpit variants. The broader nickname was the “letayushchiy tank,” the flying tank — a nod to its heavy armour and its role as an airborne assault vehicle. Some crews also called the fat-fuselage early models the “Stakan” (drinking glass) for the flat glazing of the greenhouse canopy.

But the most chilling name came from its enemies. Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan reportedly called the Hind “Shaitan-Arba” — Satan’s chariot — a measure of the fear the armoured gunship inspired before shoulder-launched missiles gave the fighters a way to strike back. That reputation, forged over the mountains of Afghanistan, has followed the Mi-24 ever since.

The earliest Mi-24A carried its crew side by side under a wide, flat “greenhouse” canopy. It worked, but it offered the crew poor protection and a cluttered view. With the definitive Mi-24D of the mid-1970s the Mil bureau completely reshaped the nose, adopting a tandem “double-bubble” canopy: the weapons operator sits low in a separate bubble in the extreme nose with an excellent field of fire, while the pilot sits raised behind, looking over the gunner’s head. Both are wrapped in armoured glass. That stepped, twin-blister silhouette became the Hind’s signature and has defined every major variant since.

The Hind is powered by two Isotov TV3-117 turboshafts (the design bureau later became Klimov), each producing roughly 2,200 shaft horsepower. The same reliable engine family powers the Mi-8/Mi-17 transport and the Ka-50/52, and it has been progressively uprated over decades of production. Twin engines give the heavy Hind the power to lift its armour, weapons and troops, and provide a margin of safety if one fails. Mounted above the cabin with prominent intakes either side of the rotor mast, the TV3-117 is a large part of why the Mi-24 can be both fast and hard-hitting. The very early Mi-24A used the earlier TV2-117 before the switch to the more powerful TV3-117.

The Hind family is large. The original Mi-24A (Hind-A/B) had the greenhouse cockpit. The redesigned Mi-24D (Hind-D) introduced the tandem double-bubble cockpit and the 12.7 mm Gatling nose gun, and was exported as the Mi-25. The Mi-24V (Hind-E) added the more capable 9M114 Shturm anti-tank missile and was exported as the Mi-35. The Mi-24P (Hind-F) swapped the turret for a fixed side-mounted 30 mm twin-barrel cannon, while the Mi-24VP used a 23 mm turret. The modernised Mi-35M, still in production, adds a shortened wing, fixed landing gear, night-attack sensors and modern missiles — keeping the flying tank current more than fifty years after the first flight.

There is no reliable published cost-per-flight-hour figure for the Mi-24. As a heavy twin-turbine combat helicopter operated mostly by state air arms — many of which do not publish detailed cost data — its true operating cost is hard to pin down and varies enormously with country, variant, age and how the accounting is done. Rough public estimates for operating a Hind fall in the low thousands of US dollars per flight hour, but that figure should be treated as an approximation rather than an official number. What can be said with confidence is that the Mi-24 was designed to be relatively simple, rugged and cheap to keep flying by the standards of a heavily armed combat helicopter — one reason so many nations could afford to operate it, and why upgraded Mi-35 versions remain attractive on the export market today. Treat any single Hind cost figure as an estimate.

Production totals for the Mi-24 vary by source. Figures commonly cited range from around 2,600 to roughly 3,500 airframes across all variants, built over decades at Soviet (later Russian) plants, with export versions designated Mi-25 and Mi-35. The type has been operated by more than fifty nations across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America — from India, Algeria and Vietnam to Poland, the Czech Republic, Cuba and beyond — and it has seen combat on almost every continent. Because different sources count sub-variants, export machines and licence work differently, exact totals should be treated as best estimates rather than definitive counts.