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Monogram 1/24 scale Huey


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A friend of mine has decided to dump his model collection, lucky for me he dumped them

into my lap! The collection is small and some of the kits have been started one of the

kits is a Monogram 1/24th Scale Huey. He started the kit and has cleaned up most of the

parts hes done a great job scratch building the seating for the front office and the

instrumentation other than that the kit is unassembled.

Im not really a copper-guy so I havent a clue where to look for information on this

kit and would like to know if its worth my time to complete the kit and how good/bad a

kit it is, so….

How old would this kit be?

How accurate is it in overall shape?

How accurate is the interior?

How accurate is the engine, as I expect to go at least some wiring, all I need to know

is its outline good?

Any information on errors and pitfalls in construction would be appreciated.

If its worth working this kit up and I get her done then it just may inspire me to get

on with the two Hueys I have in my stash and to build that Nam diorama that

I've had on the back boiler for the past 10 years!

Any help, comments or suggestions (play nice!), would be appreciated.

Edited by centuaryseries
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I've posted a more detailed reply to your question on your Hyperscale post, but here's the Cliff's Notes.

The kit dates back to 1969 and was originally released as the "Phantom Huey" with a clear fuselage. It's generally pretty accurate for an early UH-1B, but is somewhat simplified for the scale.

The best reference out there for short-body Huey's is Ray "Rotorwash" Wilhite's Huey walk-around DVD, available from Werner's Wings. Ray has an incredible collection of photos (he has access to the Army archives. With any luck, he'll chime in on this thread.

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The original Phantom Huey was made to have the rotors turn with a motor and batteries. One of the drawbacks to this is the 90 degree gearbox is way over size and not exactly accurate. This had to be done to accommodate the plastic gears to make the tail rotor turn. Another bad point are the cross tubes for the skids. They are very weak for the load they have to carry when the model is completed. It may serve you better to make them from brass tubing. One cool thing about this big model is it's easy to wind up spending time on because the room to make extra detail is abundant. Since that first see thru addition at least two other boxings were done as non-see thru kits, one was a "Call to Duty" issue and another was for a gunship of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Chris M

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Looks like Matt and Chris have pretty much got you covered. I can add that there is one other boxing I know of and that is Monongram's "Heliswiss" kit. It has all the sprues except the main weapons sprue. On the plus side though, it is usually much cheaper. I have two that were both under 20 bucks.

Regarding details, I haven't seen Matt's post on Hyperscale so I apologize if there are redundancies. Since Chris has covered exterior stuff, I'll stick to what I have noticed on the interior. Mind you, i'm building my first one now, so not the expert on this kit by a long shot. My biggest gripe is the molded on rear cabin seat backs. This is mistakenly called a "curtain" quite a bit as that is what it resembles on most short bodied Huey kits. anyway, the seat backs were rarely seen on in-country birds as they restricted access to the maintenance panels under the rear bulkhead padding. You mostly see them on very early UH-1B's. You could either sand the rear bulkhead flush and scibe a few panel lines or somehow duplicate the diamond pattern found on the soundproofing, but either way, it's not a trivial fix. The rear cabin seat is a joke and definitely needs to be replaced if accuracy is a concern. another limiting feature of the kit is that the ammo cans for the M16 quad M60C system are molded to the cabin floor. Removing them leaves a huge gap that needs to be filled with something like sheet styrene and retextured. I'd recommend build an M16 armed bird and leaving them in place. As Chris indicated there is literally acres of room for scratchbuilding improvements, but those are some of the big issues from my point of view.

Your next big challenge is choosing which bird to build. As there are no good US Army after market decals that i am aware of for early M16 armed birds, I would suggest you get THIS set from Fireball Modelworks and build a HA(L)-3 Seawolves bird like the ones below. The Seawolves inherited old Army B models as well as the older M16 armament system. initially they were all OD with "United States Navy" in black lettering on the tailboom. The early Seawolf logo with with the white dragon is in the Fireball set and would be perfect for the old Monogram B model IMHO. I hope that helps a bit.

Ray

Photos are from the National Museum of Naval Aviation archives

PICT9222.jpg

PICT9218.jpg

PICT9224.jpg

PICT9233.jpg

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I've posted a more detailed reply to your question on your Hyperscale post, but here's the Cliff's Notes.

The kit dates back to 1969 and was originally released as the "Phantom Huey" with a clear fuselage. It's generally pretty accurate for an early UH-1B, but is somewhat simplified for the scale.

The best reference out there for short-body Huey's is Ray "Rotorwash" Wilhite's Huey walk-around DVD, available from Werner's Wings. Ray has an incredible collection of photos (he has access to the Army archives. With any luck, he'll chime in on this thread.

I have read and copied the info from the Hyperscale post very useful and will

be used when I get to the build your time and input much appreciated. As I

have another two (Revell/Monogram and Esci 1/48 scale)I'll look into the

DVD, thank you.

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The original Phantom Huey was made to have the rotors turn with a motor and batteries. One of the drawbacks to this is the 90 degree gearbox is way over size and not exactly accurate. This had to be done to accommodate the plastic gears to make the tail rotor turn. Another bad point are the cross tubes for the skids. They are very weak for the load they have to carry when the model is completed. It may serve you better to make them from brass tubing. One cool thing about this big model is it's easy to wind up spending time on because the room to make extra detail is abundant. Since that first see thru addition at least two other boxings were done as non-see thru kits, one was a "Call to Duty" issue and another was for a gunship of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Chris M

Re “The original Phantom Huey was made to have the rotors turn with a motor and batteries...â€

How awful! I have never been a big fan of moving parts and battery operated props/rotors are an

abomination!

If the kit gearbox can be “adjusted I’ll do so if not then I’ll learn to live with it. I hadn’t

looked at or considered the landing skids however what you say makes sense, I keep a decent stock

of brass for just such occasions and well replace the kit gear as suggested. Thanks for input

all noted for build time.

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Looks like Matt and Chris have pretty much got you covered. I can add that there is one other boxing I know of and that is Monongram's "Heliswiss" kit. It has all the sprues except the main weapons sprue. On the plus side though, it is usually much cheaper. I have two that were both under 20 bucks.

Regarding details, I haven't seen Matt's post on Hyperscale so I apologize if there are redundancies. Since Chris has covered exterior stuff, I'll stick to what I have noticed on the interior. Mind you, i'm building my first one now, so not the expert on this kit by a long shot. My biggest gripe is the molded on rear cabin seat backs. This is mistakenly called a "curtain" quite a bit as that is what it resembles on most short bodied Huey kits. anyway, the seat backs were rarely seen on in-country birds as they restricted access to the maintenance panels under the rear bulkhead padding. You mostly see them on very early UH-1B's. You could either sand the rear bulkhead flush and scibe a few panel lines or somehow duplicate the diamond pattern found on the soundproofing, but either way, it's not a trivial fix. The rear cabin seat is a joke and definitely needs to be replaced if accuracy is a concern. another limiting feature of the kit is that the ammo cans for the M16 quad M60C system are molded to the cabin floor. Removing them leaves a huge gap that needs to be filled with something like sheet styrene and retextured. I'd recommend build an M16 armed bird and leaving them in place. As Chris indicated there is literally acres of room for scratchbuilding improvements, but those are some of the big issues from my point of view.

Your next big challenge is choosing which bird to build. As there are no good US Army after market decals that i am aware of for early M16 armed birds, I would suggest you get THIS set from Fireball Modelworks and build a HA(L)-3 Seawolves bird like the ones below. The Seawolves inherited old Army B models as well as the older M16 armament system. initially they were all OD with "United States Navy" in black lettering on the tailboom. The early Seawolf logo with with the white dragon is in the Fireball set and would be perfect for the old Monogram B model IMHO. I hope that helps a bit.

Ray

Photos are from the National Museum of Naval Aviation archives

Hi Ray Matt and Chris certainly gave the appearance that they â€knew of which they spoke“

nonetheless it’s nice to have that confirmed. Additional information concerning the interior

is very welcome as my friend did a real bang up job on the front seats and I sure as heck

would want to maintain his quality of work!

My enquiry was primarily aimed at seeing if I should keep it or ditch it. As I see no real

major “shape issues†then I’ll keep it however it will be a few months before I get to this

kit. I have the “UH-1 Huey in action†book from Squadron and “Huey†by Lou Drendel to get me

started on modeling this kit. However I’ll pull it out and using these books, and what I can

glean from the net, I’ll determine just how much work I’m willing to put into it. Re photo's

copy pastet , copy paste, copy paste thank you for your time and help.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Here's some shots of the UH-1B currently on display at Ft Campbell, KY...

That's interesting. It looks like a B that was rebuilt with C model parts. It has the 540 rotor system, cambered tail, and blade antenna of a Cmodel, but still has the B model right hand fuel filler.

Edited by HeavyArty
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That's interesting. It looks like a B that was rebuilt with C model parts. It has the 540 rotor system, cambered tail, and blade antenna of a Cmodel, but still has the B model right hand fuel filler.

Gino,

Sorry, but that bird has the standard 204 rotorhead and 21 inch chord blades of a B model as well as the narrow tail and symmetrical stabs. The blade antenna was found on all US Army Hueys. Except for the black rotormast and hub and lack of the old style bell mouth intake, it's a pretty good representation of a early Vietnam high vis B model. The nose pitot is also missing. Here are a few that I took of her that illustrate the B model features.

UH-1B%25252062-2010%252520fuselage%252520%2525288%252529.JPG

UH-1B%25252062-2010%252520fuselage%252520%2525282%252529.JPG

UH-1B%25252062-2010%252520rotor%252520%2525281%252529.JPG

UH-1B%25252062-2010%252520tail%252520%2525282%252529.JPG

UH-1B%25252062-2010%252520tail.JPG

Edited by rotorwash
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