A tweet by Julia Bergeron showing pad activity near Kennedy Space Center also showed what seems like an unusual visitor for the area. I've attached the relevant picture. It's clearly in the same family as the Mi-8, but has the following unusual features:
- The tail rotor is on the left, which I think places it in the Mi-17 (export) family?
- The rear doors are a flat ramp, not a clamshell
- There's a lump over the right door that might be a winch but also distinctly reminds me of the heater bulge forward of the right main landing gear on the Mi-8s that I'm used to, which this seems to lack?
- It's a five-blade main rotor and three-blade tail rotor, so I don't think it's one of the newer Mi-38s.
The closest I've come so far is an Mi-17MD, but I'm not fully satisfied with that identification.