Mil’ Mi-24P Side view // by Basil Zolotov

Mil’ Mi-24P «03 White» Akula (Shark) operated by the Joint Air Group at Kalinovskaya airfield, March 2000.
The helicopter wears one of the type’s standard camouflage schemes (the «green crocodile» variety — a pale grey-green base colour with irregular «cloverleaf» blotches of medium green and light greyish blue undersurfaces). The tactical code is disguised with black grease for security reasons but was sometimes displayed on a card in the cockpit. The PZU air intake filters are painted bright orange; the standard «Danger» markings on a yellow triangle are applied on the tailboom near the tail rotor. The wheel discs are green. Star insignia are applied on the rear fuselage sides and on the belly. All blade tips are red.
The shark emblem was applied on both sides of the fuselage in December 1999 to disguise the Russian flags originally painted there; thus «03» came to use the radio callsign Akula. Ground crews mockingly called it the Pregnant Shark, referring to the unusually portly shape of the fish (dictated by the rectangular flag over which it was applied!).
Helicopters on temporary duty in Chechnya were habitually covered in soot from the engine efflux; they were periodically washed but not on a regular basis because of the intensity of the fighting. This Mi-24P «03» may have been cleaner or dirtier at different points in time