FYI Huey Pilot Seat Armor

[jabow]

The Kitty Hawk Right Pilot's seat has inside armor plate same as left seat.  It was not.  Rather simple to fix but requires removal of inside armor plate and replace with one shaped like this and splayed outward at the bottom. 

Only those Real Huey nuts would even notice; but, if that's you, here's a picture to go-by.

Bo

Demon 68

 

 

[11bee]

I never noticed that before.  Any idea what the reason was for doing that?  Almost looks like the panel is broken and barely attached to the seat.  Any detail pics that show how the panel is secured?

 

Seems to leave a good size gap which would leave the piloted exposed to incoming rounds.

 

Thanks for posting. 

[hawkwrench]

If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with the range of motion for the pilot's collective stick.

 

Tim

[jabow]

A bit more protection for pilot's torso and arm while on collective. Never saw armor that wasn't like this.

 

[Floyd S. Werner, Jr.]

I see that but I've also seen pics from the manual that look exactly like the KH parts.  Check out the Armored seat thread of FSM.

Floyd

[rotorwash]

I consider these shots by Robert Brackenhoff of the 174th AHC from 70/71 to be some of the best in country pics of the pilot seats out there.  if we really want to get all nitty gritty, there are the little red tabs as well which were secured with thin wire.  When they were released the seat would rotate backwards allowing for the quick removal of pilot/copilot.  Plus as Floyd mentioned, the KH kit doesn't really represent the springs on the back of the seat very well.  Still it is light years ahead of any other plastic Huey seat in 1/48 scale.

   Ray

 

Right seat:

 

Left seat:

 

Here's a closeup of the left seat on a UH-1C at the Army Aviation Museum.  You can see the red tabs very well here.

 

 

Finally here is the seat rotated partially back after the red tabs have been flipped open:

 

[jabow]

Good shots of the seats, Ray. That's how every one I've seen looked. Thanks. And fix sould be easy.

Bo

[salvador001]

Those seat pics are mighty fine.

 

Rod.

[jabow]

23 hours ago, Floyd S. Werner, Jr. said:

I see that but I've also seen pics from the manual that look exactly like the KH parts.  Check out the Armored seat thread of FSM.

Floyd

Could be; however, all I ever saw looked like like this one.  ????

[rotorwash]

2 minutes ago, jabow said:

Could be; however, all I ever saw looked like like this one.  ????

Floyd is talking about this image. As you can see it is supposed to be a right seat but looks to have the standard rectangular offset armored panel seen on the left side.  Of course I have seen diagrams of a UH-1B in a Charlie model dash 10 so I know manuals aren't perfect.  In KHs defense, this is one of the refs I gave them.  I wasn't aware of the difference from right to left at the time.

   Ray

[jabow]

9 hours ago, rotorwash said:

Floyd is talking about this image. As you can see it is supposed to be a right seat but looks to have the standard rectangular offset armored panel seen on the left side.  Of course I have seen diagrams of a UH-1B in a Charlie model dash 10 so I know manuals aren't perfect.  In KHs defense, this is one of the refs I gave them.  I wasn't aware of the difference from right to left at the time.

   Ray

I see.  The Technical Illustrator that drew this just didn't get it exactly correct; but, it's close enuff for Gov't Work, obviously.  I likely knew and worked with both Illustrator and Writer that let this by. Looks like they missed location of the Shoulder Harness Inertial Reel Lock too.  It was by pilot right leg. LOL!!!  My years in Technical Publication taught me to be weary of any drawings.  Photos are more reliable.  Regardless, the fix should be easy and this kit is still the best!!

Bo

[11bee]

Might be worth having someone release these seats in resin?  Ideally with cast in seat belts and decals for the stencils on the seat back.   

 

This has been a great thread, very useful reference.  

[rotorwash]

On 6/27/2017 at 7:50 AM, jabow said:

I see.  The Technical Illustrator that drew this just didn't get it exactly correct; but, it's close enuff for Gov't Work, obviously.  I likely knew and worked with both Illustrator and Writer that let this by. Looks like they missed location of the Shoulder Harness Inertial Reel Lock too.  It was by pilot right leg. LOL!!!  My years in Technical Publication taught me to be weary of any drawings.  Photos are more reliable.  Regardless, the fix should be easy and this kit is still the best!!

Bo

Bo,

  Ever wonder why the Revell UH-1C has a UH-1B tail and sync elevators?  this si from the UH-1C dash 10.  Whoops!

   Ray

[jabow]

There was a Mod that put C/M tailboom and elevators on Bravo Models. We had several in my unit before we got all Mike Models.

[rotorwash]

Bo, you are correct about the tailboom since the B model was out of production, they just used the UH-1C tail.  However, The B's all had symmetrical narrow chord B model sync elevators regardless of the tailboom.  Here is a photo of one of dad's B models and you can see the Charlie model tail fin, but she clearly has the UH-1B symmetrical sync elevator with the strake on top.  I have many others showing that as well.

   Ray

 

Edited June 29, 2017 by rotorwash

[jabow]

Years ago, I sent the UH-1B DMWR for that mod to, ???  forget his name, Cobra Company and he used it to make his resin mod for the Revell kit.  The inverted airfoil sync elevator was in DMWR and in Cobra's resin update.

Your photo clearly shows old style elevator.  ???  Beats me why, parts in stock???  Our B's did have Hotel style elevators.  Mix and match.

Bo

[rotorwash]

1 hour ago, jabow said:

Years ago, I sent the UH-1B DMWR for that mod to, ???  forget his name, Cobra Company and he used it to make his resin mod for the Revell kit.  The inverted airfoil sync elevator was in DMWR and in Cobra's resin update.

Your photo clearly shows old style elevator.  ???  Beats me why, parts in stock???  Our B's did have Hotel style elevators.  Mix and match.

Bo

bo,

  I never say never, but to this point all the UH-1B's with Charlie model tails I have seen have also had the B model sync elevators.  I'd love to see photos of the ones you had.  I'll try to post some more later showing the C tail/B elevator configuration.

    Ray

[jabow]

About the seats and placement of belts.  I fully understand why modeler like to display them in seat bottom and lay down the back. Alot effort goes to make them look real.

That said, we pilots are such a sweet, nice and considerate bunch, we ALWAYS took shoulder straps and laid them on respective side of the side armor plate, AND then we'd lay the seat belt straps over  the edge of the seat bottom armor.  This left the seat void of any straps, belts or buckles that would hamper or otherwise do posterior damage to the next pilot that sit in those seats!!  To be honest, that was the easiest and best way to egress anyway.

FYI.  Real World or for display??

Bo

Demon 68

Edited June 30, 2017 by jabow

[Chief Snake]

On 6/29/2017 at 10:39 AM, rotorwash said:

bo,

  I never say never, but to this point all the UH-1B's with Charlie model tails I have seen have also had the B model sync elevators.  I'd love to see photos of the ones you had.  I'll try to post some more later showing the C tail/B elevator configuration.

    Ray

Since I engineered the Cobra Company UH-1C set I can tell you all in full about it's origins. The first intent was to give modelers the ability to go in a more reasonable direction than the kit initially gave them. I figured that the most needed things were the cambered tail fin and the sync elevators. Since the fin looked like an AH-1G fin all I had to do was modify an existing kit fin. The sync elevators came from a UH-1D/H kit since they had the same cross section. I also learned that certain UH-1B helicopters had them intentionally. The test bed aircraft for the 540 rotor equipped UH-1B had the elevators from UH-1D aircraft.  The Engineering Evaluation of UH-1B Helicopter Equipped with Model 540 Rotor System specifically defined the complete tail boom mods to the aircraft. So it is plausible that the configuration may have found it's way to field as the parts actually were blended into the UH-1C. I cannot say I saw it, but none of us see everything.

 

Chris M 

[rotorwash]

8 hours ago, Chief Snake said:

Since I engineered the Cobra Company UH-1C set I can tell you all in full about it's origins. The first intent was to give modelers the ability to go in a more reasonable direction than the kit initially gave them. I figured that the most needed things were the cambered tail fin and the sync elevators. Since the fin looked like an AH-1G fin all I had to do was modify an existing kit fin. The sync elevators came from a UH-1D/H kit since they had the same cross section. I also learned that certain UH-1B helicopters had them intentionally. The test bed aircraft for the 540 rotor equipped UH-1B had the elevators from UH-1D aircraft.  The Engineering Evaluation of UH-1B Helicopter Equipped with Model 540 Rotor System specifically defined the complete tail boom mods to the aircraft. So it is plausible that the configuration may have found it's way to field as the parts actually were blended into the UH-1C. I cannot say I saw it, but none of us see everything.

 

Chris M 

Chris,

  Te 540 one of my holy grail aircraft. Here is an honest to goodness 540 B model (63-8684). Keep in mind the first Charlie model was 64-14101. This bird has a right hand fuel filler so definitely not a true Charlie. Also, look at the tail and you can tell it isn't a standard B or C model tail. It is widened and cambered though for the 540 rotor. She also has a roof mounted pitot and the wide asymmetrical sync elevators of a Charlie (and D/H model) as well. I have heard for some time that there was at least 1 and possibly two 540 B models. I even have a far off pic of what is probably this aircraft, but this is the first hard evidence of one. This bird was also upgraded to an NUH-1M later.  Photos are form the Bell historical archives.

  Ray

 

 

[Chief Snake]

The evaluation report identifies one UH-1B/ 540 with serial number 63-8684. It was flown for 47.4 hours during Feb-Mar 1965. It also reports that Bell produced a civil 204B (N73977) with the 540 rotor system that was flown for 20 hours in January 1964 and was done at no operational cost to the US Army.

 

Chris M

[DonSS3]

Looks like the Photobucket policy change monster is at work on Ray's photos.

[hawkwrench]

It's just about on everyone's. It's really, stupid and alot of good threads are useless now because of a money hungry CEO.

 

Tim

[rotorwash]

On 7/1/2017 at 0:30 PM, hawkwrench said:

It's just about on everyone's. It's really, stupid and alot of good threads are useless now because of a money hungry CEO.

 

Tim

I am not sure what to do.  I just don't have $400 to pay to get my own photos to show up in threads  (not to mention how outrageous the company's behavior has been).  I have posted so many things from photobucket.

   Ray

[hawkwrench]

It probably wouldn't do any good, but maybe we need to somehow let PB know we aren't gonna take it and get a very large boycott going. Who knows, it may or may not work. I too don't have nor will I pay $400 just to post pics!

 

Tim