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Loach Driver

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Everything posted by Loach Driver

  1. Steven, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page ( a long way down) there are some colour photos of the Hughes 300. No colour photos of the Hiller though. You are right about the Sky Knight project being interesting. Does anyone know how many police air support units were signed up to this programme flying the Hughes 300 back in the seventies and how exactly did it work? Did Hughes subsidize the purchase price of the helicopter? Thanks. LD.
  2. I think the A Model kit is probably the one to get. It is based on the Siga kit but with additional parts for the interior and engine compartment. The rotor head detail is over-simplified in this kit and looks to be done better in the Mach kit. Overall though, A Model is probably the best on offer with some good decal options as well. LD.
  3. Well done on a fabulous build. I don't know how you manage to build these models so quickly. LD.
  4. Yea, they did fly the BO-105 but I think all their old helicopters are now derelict and abandoned. They also flew the MD530FF and I read that a "U.S. Security Firm" returned some to flying condition for their own use. LD.
  5. Here is the web address to the Baltimore P.D. website detailing the history of this Air Support Unit from the early seventies. http://mysite.verizon.net/vzesdp09/baltimo...kley2/id32.html Nothing out of the ordinary you might say, but they flew a few interesting machines back in the day. They started off with a Fairchild-Hiller FH1100 and then added a pair of Hughes 300Cs. What is very interesting is that the Hughes 300s were fitted with FLIR cameras and this is the first time I have ever seen that. Scroll down the site for a few photos of them. They would make a colourful conversion for th
  6. Ray, thanks for that reply to our query. None of the Loach books mention a "Presidential Cayuse" so thanks for posting that rare photo. I thought I had a fair idea of most of the Loach schemes applied but a new (old) one always pops up every now and then. Keep the old, colourful stuff coming, Loach or otherwise! Thanks. :) LD.
  7. Ray, great photos. Can you tell us the story behind the "Presidential Cayuse"? I never knew the Loach was used in the Presidential Flight. Is it an Army or USMC heli. I presume it is Army but I didn't know that the Army flew the VH-3, thought that was always the preserve of the 'Corps. Also, did the President ever actually fly in the OH-6A or was it used in support of the other helicopters? Thanks again for some very interesting photos. LD.
  8. No. I worded my first post a little incorrectly. The Zvezda kit is not out yet but Hannants have a list price so its release shouldn't be too far off now. Should definitely be out before the end of the year. Sorry about the incorrect info. LD.
  9. Hannants in the U.K. are listing this beast at £198 sterling. Ouch! This is one kit I have been waiting for to add to my collection and I've been saving for. To be honest, it is amazing that this helicopter is being released in this scale at all but A Model have to be congratulated for doing so. It is certainly the year for big Russian helicopters with two Mil Mi-26 kits (South Front and Zvezda) out and I think I read somewhere that a Mil Mi-10 Harke kit might be on the way as well at some point. Maybe A Model will be the people to release a new CH-54 Skycrane once they have kitted all these
  10. One minor point, the AGM-114M is no longer in production, since the AGM-114K2A is a better, more cost effective weapon. I'm also not aware of M280 rocket pods. AH-6s and OH-58s carry M260s, we carry M261s. Out of curiosity, is the XM296 the rotary barreled .50 cal? I hadn't heard it called anything but the GAU-19, but GAU tends to be an Air Force designation. Jon, the list of weapons I quoted in my first post came from a short article in the September 08 issue of "Airforces Monthly" magazine. The list does seem to be off on a number of counts. I googled the M280 pod and I was a little s
  11. DING, DING. Round Five! The Iraqi Air Force has a requirement for 24 armed helicopters and the two types in the running are the Boeing AH-6 and the Bell 407, both descendents of the very first scout helicopters, the Hughes OH-6A and the Bell OH-58A. This will be the fifth time time the H-6 has gone up against the H-58/407 design in a major competition. The Loach won the initial LOH contract for the U.S. Army Scout Helicopter requirement in 1965. That competition was re-opened in 1969 and the OH-58 won this time. The next clash was for the A.H.I.P. contract in 1981, won again by Bell with the
  12. Another brief update. I did a little more tinkering with the instrument panel. I added another small instrument to the top of the instrument panel cowling in front of the pilot's position. This was made from a short section of plastic rod. I wired it up at the rear. I also added two small squares of plastic card to modify the instrument panel further. I think I have added as much as I can to the instrument binnacle. There isn't too much more space left! Here is the whole assembly on its side. The only item left to add is the co-pilot's sight for the Mast Mounted Sight (MMS). That sh
  13. Thanks Ray, I hope it turns out OK too. For a Little Bird, Italeri have their "AH-6A Nightfox" kit in 1/72, Kit No. 017. One of the decal options is for a 160th machine but the armament option doesn't look like anything the 160th ever flew. The skids in the kit are the tall type while the 160th flies with short skids. The short skids can be borrowed from their OH-6A kit. The next question is, which version do you want to build - the AH-6J or the new AH-6M? The AH-6J is the closest version to the one that comes in the kit. The armament mounting will have to be sratchbuilt with the rocket pods
  14. It's over a month since the last update and unfortunately there is only a small bit of progress. Work, holidays and a minor illness slowed things down but the OH-6D is up and running again. I added the pair of cyclics and tailrotor pedals. The pedals were added as per the instructions. Kit Part No. 10 is the mounting for the cyclics. It doesn't resemble the way the cyclics are fitted in the real helicopter though. The cyclics are both attached to a control bar that runs under the central instrument panel and the movement of the cyclic is fed into a single set of control runs that route up
  15. Broplan have announced the imminent release of a 1/72 PZL SW-4 Puszczyk helicopter. This is the new, four-seat, training helicopter for the Polish Air Force. The kit will have 24 injected parts and 3 vacform clear parts. Decals will be for 3 different machines. Price will be around €21 (approx $25) and will probably be a limited-run production, so get them quick when they are released. Aeroclub in the U.K. will be a stockist. It's good to see some of the lesser types making it into model form. Now all we need is a Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard in 1/72! LD.
  16. I don't have any FS numbers for the colours used but the "Flying Colours Aerodecals" HKP4 decal sheet quote the colours as; Dark Green, 326M, Light Green, 322M, Brown, 507M, Black, 093M. I don't know what the numbers are beside each colour but maybe someone recognises them from some paint range or other. LD.
  17. Primeportal has a new walkaround on a USMC HRS. LD.
  18. Thanks, Ray. Yes, the Nichimo H500 is my pride and joy. Believe it or not, it sat on a shelf in a second-hand store for a year before I asked to look inside the box. I knew absolutely nothing about this kit but it cost me about £40 at the time, the equivalent of about $80 now. It turned out to be the bargain of a lifetime. There is one on ebay at the moment going for $325! As well as the book "Loach" by Wayne Mutza, a few others have been written on the H-6/500. The book on the left is out of print but can be found on ebay and at the online book store "Alibris". It deals with the early pr
  19. Besides the M60s that come with the various Italeri kits (UH-60, H-34, OH-13S), Aeroclub in the U.K. do white metal ones, two in a pack. They aren't the exact version used in the M23 system but are a good starting point and you don't have to buy a whole kit to get them. Hannants and Aeroclub themselves in the U.K. should stock them. LD.
  20. Here is where I (slowly) build my models. Here is some of the stash from my attic. First up are the single engine helis, gunships and Hueys in 1/72. Medium and heavy helicopters in 1/72. Resin, short-run kits and Russian helis in 1/72. My small collection of larger scale H-6/ MD500 kits. A few other larger scale kits. My stash of Irish Air Corps-related fixed wing types and helis in 1/72. LD.
  21. Special Hobby had a limited-run TH-55 Osage kit in 1/72 out a few years ago. It should be available from the second-hand shops or on ebay. It looks like it is one for the experts though (resin and vacform clear parts with the main components in plastic). No one makes a model of the 333 yet and I doubt it is one that will make it into model form given the relatively few numbers of the real thing that are built to-date. LD.
  22. Thanks for the heads-up. Plenty of good stuff to inspire a few interesting models. LD.
  23. Here are a few more photos of Blackwater 530FFs. I don't think there are too many modifications made to the helicopters for service in Iraq. They probably have additional military radios fitted to communicate with U.S. Army troops as well as Blackwater personnel on the ground. Maybe someone can tell from the aerials fitted under the forward fuselage? It looks like the aerial for the GPS is on top of the rear of the doghouse. The cockpit interior is painted black so maybe they are NVG-compatible as well. The 530 in the last photo appears to have a pair of hand rails just forw
  24. Here are a few photos of various Blackwater machines. They appear to be generally the same. All appear to be fitted with the AFS intake barrier filter. The style of windscreen is slightly different on some of them. The MD530FF in the last photo only has the central framing running up the middle of the windscreen. The horizontal frame is not fitted. This would indicate a refurbished machine. This style of windscreen is becoming common on MD500D models that have gone through overhaul. It's getting hard to tell an "E" from a "D". You have to check the endplates on the tailplane to see
  25. Ben, I occasionaly fly helicopters as I only have a Private Pilot´s Licence, I am not military. I was the same age (29) when I started my training. For me it was expensive but worth every penny. I made the dream come true. I may or may not continue and get a Commercial Licence to fly commercially part-time, I´m not sure, but learning to fly helicopters has been everything I thought it would be and a hell of a lot more. You might regret some of the things you have done in life, but you will regret even more the things you wanted to do but never did. Go for it. LD.
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