adrake83 Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 Here's the progress I've made with my conversion of the Trumpeter 1/35 kit to a modern Russian Air Force Mi-8MTV-5. I've concentrated my initial efforts on the external changes required for the updated Hip. The MTV-5 uses a ramp in place of the clamshell doors of the older model Hips. I cut away the rear of the fuselage and rebuilt the area out of sheet styrene. I then used putty, superglue, and Mr. Surfacer to blend the styrene into the fuselage. I also enlarged the left side cabin door. The MTV-5 also has a door on the right side of the cabin which necessitated moving the cabin heater above the door and shortening the right side fuel tank. I cut off the forward portion of the fuel tank/cabin heater and fabricated the front of the new fuel tank out of styrene and Milliput. The rear of the cabin heater was made out of styrene. I also reshaped the heater. There's still lot of changes to go in the conversion. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hajo L. Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 Excellent worke you´re showing us here! HAJO Quote Link to post Share on other sites
falcon20driver Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 Excellent works so far. I'm excited we have a HUGE helicopter in the builds. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
adrake83 Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 (edited) Alright, not a whole lot of progress so far, mostly due to my work schedule. I've started working on detailing the interior of the cabin. I've added bench seats made from styrene sheet and florist's wire. I used a Dremel tool with a drum sander attachment to rough out the concave shape. This view shows the general layout of the cabin before I start cramming it full of soldiers and equipment. Note the modification of the cabin bulkhead to accommodate some electronic boxes. The pilots' seats on the new MTV-5 helicopters are different from the legacy Hips so I modified some spare Trumpeter CH-47D seats to fit the part. I still need to fabricate the new headrest. The crew's personal weapons and the cabin door machine gun are from DML's AK-74 family. I painted these with various bottles of Model Master enamel paints. The crew are modified figures from Trumpeter's CH-47D crew set with CMK Russian Helicopter Pilot heads. I had to remove all the molded on pockets in the vests and add appropriate pouches to model the current survival vest used by the Russian Air Force in Syria. There are a few differences between the vests I made and the real RuAF ones but I'm not striving for perfect accuracy in this model. This will be the flight engineer's approximate position in the port cabin door. The ammunition bin next to the figure should be a clue as to what weapon is going to be installed in that door. Here are some images I found online of Russian Air Force pilots in Syria and their gear: Finally, my intention with this model is for it to be part of a larger diorama of a Russian Spetsnaz assault on a Syrian house. I am not aware of any reports that Russian forces in Syria took part in the kind of unilateral offensive actions that my diorama would depict, so I am not striving for complete accuracy in this build. The helicopter is going to be built so it can be suspended above the house with the commandos fast roping out of the back onto the roof of the house, similar to this photo: I hope to focus more on the model this week. I really need to tackle the cockpit as the instrument panel has to be completely scratchbuilt as does the fast rope suspension mount for the rear of the cabin. Edited January 31, 2017 by adrake83 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
falcon20driver Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 This....is....going....to....be....EPIC. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
K5054NZ Posted February 3, 2017 Share Posted February 3, 2017 What he said. Wow! What a project! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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