Mil Mi-4 'Hound' - Hobby Boss

In 1955, Hungary wished to order four Mi-4's from the Soviet Union, but it soon turned out that only two of the available aircraft were airworthy. Those two (number 1027 and number 1028) were flown from Ukraine to Hungary. The helicopters were unarmed and were intended to fulfill various transport and surveillance tasks. Eight pilot candidates from the Hungarian People's Army were selected to learn to fly the new helicopters under supervision from Soviet instructors, but only four of the eight candidates managed to get through the pilot training in 1956.

Later that year, the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet occupation took place, where the two helos were put in active duty, equipped with a rectangular painted-on Hungarian flag replacing the Soviet style star national insignia, to provide munitions- and food transport duties, reconnaissance and to distribute anti-Soviet flyers to the population. After two weeks, the uprising was quenched by Soviet reinforcements; the rectangular Hungarian flags of the Mi-4's were overpainted, the Soviet style stars repainted and the helicopters were then reinstated to regular service.

Unfortunately, the two Mi-4's turned out to be very short-lived; both were lost in 1957 and 1958, both due to rotor blade failures, in both case killing the crew. The two Mi-4's had no more than about 1000 hours of flying time in Hungarian service. The Soviet Union quickly provided a replacement Mi-4 helicopter, but due to the lack of trained crew, it never became operational and was later swapped to a MiG-15 UTI trainer aircraft.