Bell 412; Slovenian Army

[Sebastijan]

So why I'm gonna build this helicopter? Because it saved my life once. Slovenia has a long history of voluntery firefighters. Most of the boys start learning about this noble job at young age (I started taking lessons when I was 8 years old). Of course in those young years, we were thought mostly theoretic stuff and were more playing and exploring the real stuff. When we got into our teen years, we started learning on using various firefighting equipment and started to take part in competitions where precission and mostly the teamwork our of crucial importance. But all of this was just preparing us for the real stuff. When we got to the age of 18, we were allowed to take the test and if successful, became qualified firefighters and were allowed to take part in real operations. I took part in several ops, but luckily not too many and we were saving mostly houses and/or haystacks and farms - more often than not, fires started by lightning strikes. However on that faithful August in 1998, Bell 412 saved my life. It was a very dry summer with a high chance of forest fires. And then it happened - alarm call for forest fire some 8kms from where I live. The terrain there is very difficult - steep and rocky with mostly pine trees and bushes. More than 20 voluntery companies were called into "combat". While volunteers were tasked mostly with denying the spreading of fire and fighting the burning bushes, proffesional firefighters were battling the blazing trees. Situation was so dire that a helicopter was called in using the bambi bucket for firefighting. Anyway during the firefighting I was cut of by fire and got trapped between the fire and the rocky cliff. I managed to descend a bit on the rocks to get just below the fire. Moments later I heard the familiar sound of rotors slapping the air when the copter overflew me and released the water behind my back and made me a path to safety. Unfortunately I don't recall the tactical number of that helicopter (all 8 are able to carry the bambi buckets) but to be honest, at that time, it was the last thing on my mind to check for it. After this, I never fought forest fires again and several years later "retired" from the active firefighting.

I will be building Italeri 1:72 model with Balkan Models decals for H2-35. I'll probably do some scratch building as well to bring the model to our Army standard.

As I'll be staring this build at a later date, due to other commitments and hosting my own GB at the same time, here are just teaser photos of our B412 at firefighting exercise at Cerklje AB where I also work as an air traffic controller.

[-Neu-]

Very interesting story Seb... I don't think I'd be able to fight another fire as well after that either. I really like the 412 too... its not normally my favorite heli but I for some reason really like that slovenian scheme.

Edited August 19, 2012 by -Neu-

[Sebastijan]

had some problems in life in the past few months and modelling was brought almost to a halt... things have started sorting out as of lately and I am in the process of finishing my two entries for Iran-Iraq war GB. I expect to start with the 412 sometime next week. Until first in progress photos - here's a shot I took a few years ago that I really like

http://www.airfighters.com/photo/33235/L/Slovenia-Air-Force/Bell-412EP/H2-35/