Begemot 1/48 Mi-24V/VP/K/R Hind Family Decal First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Begemot Decals is an interesting decal company from Rostov-on-Don, Russia that offers a nice array of markings for Russian-built aircraft. In this release, Begemot has produced a nice selection of subjects for Zvezda's 1/48 Mi-24V/VP Hind kit. Unfortunately, according to the postmark on the envelope, Begemot sent this sample on the 20th of April, 2020, just as the post offices around the world stopped overseas shipping. I received this set only yesterday, over four months later (at least it got hiere). As you can see, the decals are provided on three sheets providing a wide range of markings variations that appeared on these aircraft.

This set provides markings and profiles for 36 examples from services including:

• Armenian Air Force
• Afghanistan Air Force
• Azerbaijan Air Force
• Croatian Air Force
• Georgian Air Force
• Hungarian Air Force
• Indian Air Force
• Kazakhstan Self-Defense Force
• Libyan Air Force
• Macedonian Air Force
• Mongolian Air Force
• Polish Army
• Russian Army
• Russian Navy
• Slovakian Air Force
• Soviet Army
• Sri Lanka Air Force
• Sudanese Air Force
• Ukrainian Army

With this variety of operators come a interesting variety of color schemes and as you can see in the image above, the instructions are in color and they provide a key of which colors are used in each scheme.

While this is going to be a great resource for building the Zvezda kit(s), you'd better not be in a hurry. This set took four months to arrive and while i've seen some things get through as fast as three months, it might be a while before you can acquire a set. Even so, there aren't any other options available except using the markings that come in the kit. That's not in my plans...

My sincere thanks to Begemot Decals for this review sample!