The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has conducted the first in-house overhaul of its Mil Mi-35P (NATO reporting name: Hind) gunship, the service announced.

An overhauled NAF Mi-35P combat helicopter
(Credit: Nigerian Air Force)

According to NAF, the acceptance ceremony took place on June 9 at the base of the 115th Special Operations Group (SOG) in Port Harcourt (Rivers State, Nigeria). "The NAF has successfully conducted the first in-house overhaul of its Mi-35P (NAF 531) combat helicopter," the press department of the NAF said in a statement.

According to the service, the works were conducted at the base of the 115th SOG with involvement of foreign technical specialists.

During the ceremony, Air Vice Marshal Oladayo Amao said the overhauled helicopter would reinforce Nigeria`s counter-terrorism assets and beef up the Internal Security forces. "It has been the first Nigerian in-house extension of the Mi-35P`s service life. The program has allowed us to save money and train our technicians," Amao said. He added that the works to maintain the second NAF Mi-35P (NAF 530) helicopter had already started.

According to the Military Balance 2018 analytical book published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the NAF operates 13 Mil Mi-24-family gunships (including two Mi-24P (Hind), four Mi-24V (Hind), three Mi-35 (Hind), the Mi-35P and two Mi-35M (Hind-E)).

The NAF Mi-35P combat helicopters are reported to be armed with a side-mounted twin-barrel GSh-30 30 mm automatic cannon, 9M114 Kokon (AT-6 Spiral) anti-tank guided missiles and S-5/S-8 57 mm/80 mm unguided rockets.

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