Whirlybird

test fit minigun in frame

Put some time in on the engine bay and interior and trial fitting fuselage and searchlight/starlightscope and minigun frame.

Well, it gave me time to finish some other stuff. Roswell '57 - Sci-Fi Modeling - ARC Discussion Forums

I had some down time from other projects to finally focus on getting this done for a local contest over the weekend. My first venture into LED lighting. I grafted 1/12th sale Monogram '57 Chevy fins and taillights onto a Monogram Flying Sub/"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" model. I had an alien driver sculpted from Apoxie, with a lit cigarette (tiny Z sized LED). The antigravity device at the bottom has a raceway circuit rotating band of lights. Not a winner but it was entertaining.

I was getting ready to visit the museum at Ft. Eustis to meet the curator and make the measurements on the Th-55. Before I left, I called the curator at the museum several times and no one answered. I finally got ahold of information, and they informed me the museum is closed until further notice, due to the Government shutdown. No idea when it will reopen. Glad I called ahead.

Not sure whether Revell had a Lama or was it an Alouette II...I did find this build : SA 315B Lama 1/32 - Finished - Give Peace A Chance GB - Britmodeller.com

Thanks. When I researched the SA315B Lama I found out it was designed for operation at higher elevations/altitudes (hot and high?) and therefore the countries that used it tended to be the countries that had the need for this specialized kind of helicopter. Options were kind of limited, Pakistan and several south American countries.

While my other projects are on hold, I was sorting through the old kit stash and found this very old 1969 Heller kit. Don't see this helicopter very often in any scale. Several were on Ebay asking $135. I decided just to build it "out of the box" with Pakistani Army decals I had. The instructions were in French, so I had to build from the pictures on the instructions. The tail boom went together easily but the fuselage framework was the real challenge. There aren't any location holes, it was all butt joints and keeping it straight and 90 degrees got a bit frustr

Photo reference has its limitations especially when looking at old color prints, for all the reasons you pointed out. Even the real thing has variations due to weathering. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Thats a tremendous amount of detailed information, thanks. Definitely looking like a winter project now.

I stand corrected...the set of instructions I mentioned were from an old 1998 kit. My kit instructions from the 2021 kit provides much more information. The options for the build in the newer OH-13kit are: Version A- US Army Version B- RAAC UK Version C-Germany Version D - Italy Version E - Spain Version F - Australia The larger fuel tanks (flat tanks - 57b,58b, 59b) are for the C-German and D-Italian versions of the OH-13 according to the more recent instructions. That explains how I made the correct choice of fuel tanks (version

"The fuel tanks (parts 54b, 55b, and 56b) are the right size but need to be recontoured. The drip pans are too tall, and the tank portion is too skinny. The tanks are oval when viewed from the top; the kit depicts them as flat-sided." The Italeri kit provides two sets of fuel tanks. The set of fuel tank parts you mentioned, parts 54b, 55b, and 56b are the parts for the Alternative F smaller size fuel tanks vs Alternative G larger fuel tanks (57b, 58b and 59b) . The instructions are not clear on which "alternative" fuel tank (large or small) for a US Army O

Rob - Thank you for the very detailed kt analysis. I suspected the Italeri OH-13 1/48 kit had its shortcomings when I built it, - which is why I entered it "Out of the Box" at the IPMS Nationals. I decided to live with the inaccuracies just to have one completed. After all the hassles the of doing a scratch built (OH-23G) an out of the box build was a relief. With your list of what needs to be done this looks like an extended build. I only wish I was good at soldering brass wire for the tail boom structure...that clunky thick plastic strut is the biggest weakne

That would be great, thanks!

Thanks, Rob. While I like the OD /Orange color combo, I'd like to do the TH-13T instrument trainer version. Any chance the TH-13Ts had the OD/Orange combo? If not, I'll have to live with the all-orange tail framework.