07284 MIL MI-1 SOVIET AMBULANCE HELICOPTER

The Mil Mi-1 was a light, multi-role, all-metal, Soviet-made helicopter with a fixed landing gear in a classic layout with a main rotor and a tail rotor on the beam. The drive was provided by an AI-26 GR piston engine with 550 HP. The flight of the first prototype took place in September 1948, and serial production lasted from 1950 to 1961. Licensed production also continued in Poland in the period 1956-1965 at the Świdnik plant. The Mil Mi-1 was the first mass-produced helicopter in the USSR in history. Despite the lack of experience of the plants, Mil turned out to be an extremely successful structure. Several upgrades to the basic version were made. The first one, chronologically, was the Mi-1T version: it had a significantly more powerful engine and anti-icing installation. In 1957, the Mi-1A model was developed, which could take external fuel tanks and had a more mechanically refined (although still the same!) Engine. The very successful Mi-1 was widely exported to the Warsaw Pact countries, but also to Finland and Indonesia, for example. The last machines of this type were used until the mid-1980s.