I have spent all morning trawling around the Internet trying to get a definitive answer on this. In the early Mi-2A variant with the large glass cockpit enclosure, what was the actual crew and layout? What I believe, based on the model kit I have, and at least one computer modeled cockpit, is that the crew is and was always two, the Mi-24A was semi-tandem with the pilot in the back, offset to port, the gunner in the front center. But every webpage I find seems to say something different. Greg Goebels of AirVectors, who seems to generally know his stuff, states in his book that the crew of the Mi-24A was "pilot, navigator and gunner, later reduced to two crewmen in tandem in the later variants". Another page claims it was "pilot and co-pilot and gunner", implying that the visibility problems arose from the presence of the side-by-side seating for the pilots. A third site, which includes numerous detailed technical specifications for the aircraft, states that early Mi-24s had "either 3 or 4 crew" including two pilots, a gunner and a navigator. I am pretty sure the Mi-24 has always had two crewmen, and I think these sources are perpetuating old speculation from authors who never had a chance to look inside of an Mi-24. And apparently now that we have access to them, no one thinks there is anything of interest inside the aircraft worth taking photos of.
1 Answer
The Mi-24 did always have tandem seating and a necessary crew of two, comprising a pilot and a gunner. The pilot was in the back and offset to the left of the gunner.
Later Mi-24A versions added an optional flight engineer seat, located behind the pilot. The flight engineer seat was retained for a while, but moved to the dismount/cargo cabin later, in the D and V versions.
Here are some views of the pilot's seat of the Mi-24A. This picture seems to have been taken close to the flight engineer's position:
The pilot's visibility in the Mi-24A was restricted because his seat wasn't raised far enough above the gunner. The cockpit had limited transparency from above, and the flat glazing produced glare in sunny conditions.
There was never a co-pilot or side-by-side seating. To digress a bit, side-by-side was used later in the Ka-52, and visibility was considered sufficient, as it is in most civil helicopters with that arrangement. The Mi-24A simply had a suboptimal cabin layout.
It's essentially a single enclosure for everyone: pilot, gunner, optionally flight engineer, and anyone in the back. Seems possible to move between the sections, but not easily. It wasn't a particularly optimized design, some of the space is unnecessary. Just a product of placing tandem seats in a fuselage too wide for one, not wide enough for side-by-side.
Then the large greenhouse cockpit was replaced by two separate armored cockpits with bubble canopies that offer 360-degree better visibility, as seen on D, V, and later variants.
There is an article online listing every single variant. You can find more photos if you search by Cyrillic designations - there seems to be a few helos left out in a boneyard museums.
