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UH-60A - time to walk the walk...


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Good work on the floor.

Does anybody have that floor template for an Australian Blackhawk at all? The recess/tie down points are in different areas but not sure what model to use as reference? UH-60A? Ours are designated S-70-A, initial deliveries in 1988.

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what kind of awesomeness are the Aussies carrying back there that they need this tie-down configuration?!

i've never seen that either, but it sure would make for a cool build!

-Ramon

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The S-70A-9 was delivered with that floor configuration. It's for two rows of three seats back to back that run from just behind the loadmaster's seats to in front of the rear row of seats.

HTH

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  • 8 months later...

OK, time to resurrect this thread and FINALLY make some progress on this build. Just for the sake of production momentum, I will be focusing on my C2 bird for now, and I will do my DUSTOFF bird in another build. Now, where was I...?

CABIN WALLS - I will be using the Cobra Company set for this one. They are beautifully cast and very well detailed, but the top end of the broom closets are way too round. By comparison, the cabin walls from the Werner's Wings Medevac set are more accurately shaped, but are not as finely detailed as the Cobra Company's set. Either way, both are great sets and I will be using them both, and its nothing that cant be fixed with a little bit of grinding and scratch building. The only reason these details stand out to me is because I spent so much time sat in the crew chief's seat.

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So in the photo above you can see that I attempted to build up the broom closet area with Sculpey. That eventually melted the plastic so lesson learned - Sculpey and plastic dont mix! I forgot to take a photo of the Cobra Company part before I filed down the broom closet, so here it is after i filed it down to a flatter shape.

Its all still a work in progress and everybody else's builds raise the bar and inspire me to do better. More progress to follow soon...

-Ramon

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Nice start on the hawk, brother. Great looking soundproofing cover!!!

I should be restarting the rotor head shortly!

Tim

Thanks Tim! I still have some touch ups to do, and I am also trying to decide how to represent the zip screws in the sound proofing... looking forward to seeing more of your rotor head dude!

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hey thats cool. some people really like the miniature recreation of real life machinery and vehicles. Other people like kit-bashing and just making things look cool, regardless of trying or wanting to be accurate. with this pair of Hawks, i want to recreate them as i remember them, through years of first hand experience, but with other models where i dont have a personal connection, i just want to make something that looks cool on my desk at work, and i dont want to be pinned down to 'making it accurate' at the expense of having fun and relaxing at my work bench.

different people have different preferences, and thats ok, much like religion. and like religion, its cool to have it, and its cool to be proud of it, just as long as one does not try to convert people because they think their way is the "right way". its always cool to get constructive feedback, but once someone says they want to go down a different path and then someone else keeps trying to tell them they are wrong, then that person becomes a jerk.

welcome to ARC. observe, participate, makes friends and learn new things, but dont ever let yourself become a jerk. as the great Shepard Paine said most wisely, "simulate, dont duplicate"

just my dos pesos...

Cheers!

:)/>/>/>/>

-Ramon

Well said

Edited by scottr5213
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Thanks Tim! I still have some touch ups to do, and I am also trying to decide how to represent the zip screws in the sound proofing... looking forward to seeing more of your rotor head dude!

Aber has photoetched brass screw heads or you could use resin rivets, or use a small punch and punch out small discs and then glue on the PE screw heads.

That's what I'm going to do for the SP zippers!

Tim

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progress so far... when i drilled out the floor for the tiedowns and back filled the holes, i didnt pay attention to the cargo hook area and how that would be visible on the finished model, so i have remedied that situation with a false floor out of very thin plastic. i also scribed a line where the cargo hook door would be...

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i also added some photoetch panels to the floor underneath the pilot seats, opted to use the photo etch grenade boxes instead of the resin ones, and added the pilot seat emergency release handles to the seat frames.

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lastly last night, i also began building the radio console out of sheet plastic, calculated guesses and shaky memory. i might need to make it a bit more narrow than what it is now...

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it all looks kinda rough right now, but there is still a lot of clean up to do so hopefully it wont look like amateur hour when i am done!

-Ramon

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Thanks Rod! I am building my bird from when I was in Bosnia back in 1997/98. It's a UH-60A that was used as a command and control bird (C2), so it had extra radio gear and antennas. It also had my name under the crew chief window!

:-)

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Edited by anvil6
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Good job so far Ramon. I have a question.

Do you have close up pics of the C2 console?

Also, when a C2 bird is used, how many consoles are used?

Just curious bro because I had a friend who was in the 160th SOAR and he was the crew chief on Super 63 (the C2 helo) in the air during the raid that day when 2 birds were shot down.

I guess there C2 layout would be similar to yours maybe?

Tim

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Thanks Tim! I don't know about how the 160th would C2 config since they got all the cool toys and they got to do things their way, (might be similar but odds are they had a better set up) but the C2 birds we had were configured with the radio console attached to the floor between the crew chief seats. It was heavy and a pain in the butt to take out / put in! The radio operator would sit in the front row center troop seat.

There would also be a map board, which was a hollow box on legs and had a fold down tray like on the back of an airliner seat. I usually stored POL and cargo straps inside the box. That would take the place of the two center rear facing seats. On that tray was the actual map holder, which if I remember was like a giant tablet with a clear plastic lid to hold the map in place. The colonel and his minions would sit in the back row and run things from there, in a race track pattern above the action.

I WISH I had good pictures but I don't, so I am having to build this from memory and one crappy pic I found on the internet...

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a bit more progress on the radio console... I had to cut it to make it more narrow. I also reinforced it from the inside with scrap sprue and closed off the front of the console with more sheet plastic.

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I think it's a bit closer to workable dimensions now...

-Ramon

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Slow progress is still progress... Here I have begun to build the vents for the C2 console:

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In other news, the KINGS defeated the Dallas stars tonight - WOOHOO! What an exciting and distracting game to watch while I chip away at this model, sat on my couch in the living room!

I'll get more done when it warms up enough that I can get back to my work bench in the garage...

-Ramon

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  • 2 weeks later...

a bit more progress on the C2 console: a primer coat and a scrubbing with a sanding film. I also made the light panel over the ICS box behind the pilot's seats or of wine foil. Some scrap decals for color are also installed. Next I will dry brush, weather and color the front a bit...

Baby steps... When it gets warmer in my garage I can be a bit more productive...

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-Ramon

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