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I have begun my Italeri 1/72 HAS.3, which will be finished as "Humphrey" an FAA helicopter that served with distinction from HMS Antrim during the Falklands conflict.

The kit looks very nice in the box but it does have a few 'gotcha's' for the unwary.

These are, but not limited to:

The tail rotor blades are rotating in the wrong direction as moulded (they rotate clockwise)

tailrotorwrongway.jpg

The lower cockpit access steps are moulded staggered, instead the rear of the lower step should be in line with the upper step

There are various access holds on the nose that are moulded flush.

The single point refuelling point (the "lump" ) on the stb'd side is missing

rightfuzinit.jpg

Interestingly the box art depicts all the missing details as well as the correct tail rotor orientation!

The cabin has no interior detail at all. The rear window on the port side was tinted blue, however I chose to use some artistic licence and painted both of the port windows Tamiya clear blue as I didn't want people peering into the cabin which is completely empty.

cabindryfit3.jpg

I made a new sheet floor to avoid having to fill in all the seat locating holes, and a ceiling was added to avoid the see-through look. I also added a 'curtain' made from wine bottle foil, to the rear bulkhead avionics access door.

cabin.jpg

I then turned my attention to the cockpit. The missing collective levers were added. Why do model companies keep leaving these out? I used the kit decals after first sanding off all the console details. I used some spare Re-heat cockpit placard decals on the vertical centre console between the seats. Not perfect, but it looks a little busier than the original bits.

cockpitpainted.jpg

cockpitdryfit3.jpg

Finally, I used a new scalpel blade to open up and clean the flash from the vent openings around the rear engine cowling. I also addded plastic sheet that I had pre-painted matt black to the inside of the cowl, again to prevent the veiwer seeing the cabin roof.

cowlblank1.jpg

cowlblank2.jpg

anyhow, that's all for now,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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The tail rotor blades are roatating in the wrong direction as moulded (they rotate clockwise)

Pappy

Nice to see another entry in progress.

Sad but true... you are absolutely right about tail rotor. Very useful discover to Wessex/S-58 lovers. Very dissapointed with Italeri designers.

Cya!

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Yeah it annoys me too!

Italeri also stuffed the rotors on the MH-47E kit. The blades have the broad chord of the composite fitted

CH-47D, however the blade roots are square cut instead of angled (the earlier metal bladed rotors of the CH-47A had square blade roots), and the blades also were moulded as rotating in the wrong direction!

Still, I guess that is why we use references!

cheers,

Pappy

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More progress today,

I corrected the tail rotor by cutting off the individual blades. After drilling a hole using a pin vise, the blades were re-attached in the opposite direction. I used small sections of fuse wire to act as pins for extra strength.

tailrotorfixed.jpg

I also replaced the chunky pitch change linkages with finer items made from stretched sprue.

tailpitchlinks.jpg

I chose to remove the tail wheel unit once the fuselage halves had been joined. This meant that the awkward seam above it could be easily dealt with. I also replaced the shock strut. I preferred this to cleaning up the seam, and the shock strut was oval shaped in any case, so it also improved the appearance

tailwheel.jpg

Still dealing with the tail, I opened the tail rotor 'mesh' areas on top of the tail. i also added a rudimentary gearbox shape inside made from bits of shaped sprue.

tailgearbox.jpg

At this point I attached the Ron's Resin's under fuselage detail set. This consists of a flat resin piece that is attached to the belly using the location diagram included. I did notice however that the sonar housing was devoid of detail, so some details were fashioned using plastic card and rod as per the picture in the 4+ book.

bellyresin.jpg

I also attached the main gear struts. I cleaned up the lower arm, but didn't bother with the vertical struts, electing instead to remove these and replace them with new items made from brass rod and a syringe tube to form a telescopic assy. They look much better IMHO!

leftnose.jpg

rightleg.jpg

Well, that's all for now,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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More progress today,

I have added some brass mesh to the opeings in the top of the tail rotor housing.

mesh.jpg

I have also added wire to the main gear legs to represent the hydraulic brake lines and flotation gear pressure inlet lines. I used bare metal foil for the strapping on the horizontal main gear legs. I didn't line the look of the cabin entry stp so I made a new one from some copper wire and wine bottle foil.

wiredetailsright.jpg

wiredetailsleft.jpg

I noticed that there is some tubing on the left fuselage. I think these tubes are used when the auxilliary fuel tank is attached but are stowed when not in use. I used some solder and plastic rod.

piping.jpg

I noticed that the box on the rear of the belly required a semi-circular fairing in front. I used a section of quarter round plastic stock

progressbelly.jpg

cheers,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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G'day again, some more progress,

I have added the hydraulic lines to the main gear lower arms using copper wire and bare metal foil.

progressright.jpg

I also decided that the winch platform looked a little chuncky. Italeri have managed to make the tubular frames oval shaped so I simply used the kit part as a pattern and made a new item using plastic rod. I added a new cabin entry step using copper wire.

I also finished the GPMG, but not before modifying the Aeroclub white metal item. The tripod legs and barrel grip were sliced off, and a shell bag, new firing grips, ammo tin and a new mount were fashioned from scarps of plastic card and copper wire

GPMG4.jpg

GPMG3.jpg

GPMG2.jpg

GPMG1.jpg

cheers,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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Guest LITTLE BIRD 117

Pappy121,

I really wish I saw this earlier. This an amazing build. You are doing a great job onth e scratch building. I truly can not wait to see the finnish.

I will talk it over with the other MOD's, but I think it would be cool to have a poll to see what the best builds are. Then again, it's up to you guys as well.

Jake

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G'day again,

I noticed that "Humphrey" has two different styles of pylon in the FAA Museum pictures. The left side has a deeper pylon, with two forward vertical bracing struts, whilst the right side has a shallower pylon that only has one vertical brace.

I am a little confused, is this the 'normal' fit or is this a mixture of the two styles of pylon? The 4+ book drawings show the two diiferent pylon types as 'alt 1' and 'alt.2'

cheers,

Pappy

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G'day people,

Only a small update today. I have added the canopy but not before adding some coiled leads made from fine copper wire. I also sanded off the moulded 'detail' on the overhead panel as it looked pretty simplistic and instead replaced it with three sections of decals from the spares box. Lastly, the rotor brake was added using a bit of fuse wire.

canopy1.jpg

canopy3.jpg

I also made two masters for the diffeent types of weapon pylons.

I still havn't solved my problem as to which type (or if both types) were carried on "Humphrey" during the Santa Fe encounter in the Falklands. The FAA Museum pics show the deeper (Type 1) type fitted on the left and the shallower (type 2) fitted on the right. I don't think this is correct, can anyone help?

master1.jpg

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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Today's update.

I was over at Helikit news discussion board, when OzH pointed out that there is a fairing that lives beneath the single point re-fuelling lump just forward of the cabin entry door. This fairing travels down vertically and joins the underbelly structure. I replicated this using some .015 thou plastic sheet.

refuelfairinglower.jpg

I also finished off the rotor head. I added the yaw dampers, flap hinge bits as well as new links from the lower star plate and some wiring bits. In all, there are about 50 bits in the assy!

rotorside.jpg

rotordryfittop.jpg

cheers,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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G'day people,

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone!

G'day Littlebird, can I assume that I am part of this groupbuild as you didn't respond to my sign up message!

I have begun work on the weapons. "Humphrey" used two Mk.11 Mod 3 depth charges during the attack on the Argentine submarine 'Santa Fe'.

I don't know if anyone makes 1/72 depth charges, but since these are basically a tube wuith a conical fin assy, I decided to have a bash at them. I used the drawings in the back of the 4+ book as a reference. I made a master and cast some copies. This was my fisrt foray into casting, and I am well pleased with the results and was surprised how easy it was.

Here are a couple of pics of the castings (sorry for the poor resolution):

depthchargetop.jpg

depthchargeside.jpg

I decided to add the three fins and bracing ring to the conical rear section after I separated the two sections from their pour stub.

cheers,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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Guest LITTLE BIRD 117

Pappy121,

So sorry I did not respond. Unless you have a question on if your build is up to GB standards, you are in. Like if you had a question on if a flying pancake was ok, then we would respond. So, ya you are in!!! More than in!!! Good job, can't wait to see the finnish.

Jake

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G'day people,

Thanks for getting back Jake, I thought I may have slipped through the cracks.

More progress today.

I began assembling the depth charges. This consisted of separating the body and the conical tail assembly from their resin pour stub. After cleaning up, the two sections were offered up to each other and glued using some CA. A light rub down with some wet'n'dry sandpaper and it was onto the rear section.

I made the six tail fins from scrap plastic card and glued these onto the conical tail section. I then carefully sliced a strip of wine bottle foil and this formed the tail fin bracing ring. I also added some scrap of plastic and copper wire to represent what look like latches on the rear assembly.

depthscale.jpg

depthrear.jpg

depth1.jpg

cheers,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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G'day Ray!

I like Wessex (Wessexes?) and one that is bombed up will look pretty tough methinks.

As for going to town, most of the mods are just correcting what Italeri should have gotten right in the first place, eg getting the tail rotor direction wrong is pretty naff.

As for making the depth charges, well I don't think there were any produced in 1/72 so it was a case of make them myself or go without!

cheers,

Pappy

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