Mi-24s at Torzhok

The Berkuts belong to the 344th army aviation combat employment and conversion centre at Torzhok in Tver Oblast. A display squadron existed from 1989, and the team counts its birthday as 11 April 1992, the date of its first demonstration flight. For two decades it flew the Mil Mi-24, starting with four helicopters and later six. Early appearances included MosAeroShow-92, the 50th anniversary Victory Day parade in 1995 and Moscow’s 850th anniversary in 1997, and the Berkuts became regular participants in Red Square flypasts and at MAKS.

Night Hunters in formation

In 2012 the team moved to the Mil Mi-28N Night Hunter. Six Mi-28Ns, around seventy tonnes of helicopter, fly group aerobatics on combat attack helicopters, which the team describes as unique in the world: barrel rolls, loops and tail-standing figures with ten to fifteen metres between machines, flown directly over the airfield. Displays use groups of six and four, and the team also shows the Kamov Ka-52 in solo aerobatics. The helicopters wear camouflage with a lightning stripe in the national colours. The commander named on the team’s site is Colonel Andrei Popov.

Dubrovichi, 2015

On 2 August 2015, at the close of the Aviadarts competition at Dubrovichi near Ryazan, the slot Mi-28N lost control during a four-ship bomb-burst and crashed. The commander, Colonel Igor Butenko, was killed; the second pilot, Lieutenant Aleksandr Klepnov, survived. The crew reported a hydraulic failure, and the air force grounded the Mi-28 fleet pending the investigation.