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3 hours ago, jpk said:

What 1/48 UH-1 kit best represents their aircraft during the SEA war?

HAL-3 flew primarily old Army B models and later  C and M model Hueys.  The Sealords also flew UH-1L and HH-1K aircraft.  However, for a "typical" Seawolf bird, I would use a UH-1B or UH-1C kit.  What scale you looking to build?

    Ray

  

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It would be more helpful if you decide the type you want to build. There are many add ons and kitbashing  that could be done if you are willing to spend a few extra dollars. If it were me I would start with the Monogram Huey Hog kit. From there you can make the additions or deletions to get to the type you want. The Monogram kit is sort of a hybrid of UH-1B and UH-1C. It has the wrong main rotor for a B model, it's more like a C model. To fix that I would rob the rotor system from an old UH-1D kit made by AMT or ESCI. There are two fuel filler ports on the kit, right and left side. The right is correct for a B model and the left for the C model. Delete the appropriate one with some model filler. The tail is for the B model. The C model tail correction was made by the old Cobra Company. It allows you to go either way with your model. B Model had tail replacements done with C model tail booms but they kept the same synchronized elevators. If you wanted to go to a C or M model the Cobra Company resin set gets you there, including new sychn elevators. The tropical air filter comes in the Huey Hog kit, the old bell mouth would have to come from a much older Monogram UH-1 kit, I think it was depicted as an Army Dustoff. It also may have a rotor system that is closer to a B model one There are also some bell mouth UH-1's made by other companies that you rob from the kit. A Fujimi kit maybe??  The weapons provided are decidedly Army systems. The rocket pod is not right for the period and the M-60 guns were swapped out for M-134 mini guns, although some of the earliest ones turned over by the Army may have had them. The Seawolf guys had many variations of weapons they used. You would have to target one illustrated aircraft to scare up some of the right weapons. Lots of pylon variation and lots of door gun variations.

The old Cobra Company resin set is now the property of Lone Star Models as they bought all of the masters. Check to see if it has been brought up again.

 

Chris M

Edited by Chief Snake
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3 hours ago, Chief Snake said:

It would be more helpful if you decide the type you want to build. There are many add ons and kitbashing  that could be done if you are willing to spend a few extra dollars. If it were me I would start with the Monogram Huey Hog kit. From there you can make the additions or deletions to get to the type you want. The Monogram kit is sort of a hybrid of UH-1B and UH-1C. It has the wrong main rotor for a B model, it's more like a C model. To fix that I would rob the rotor system from an old UH-1D kit made by AMT or ESCI. There are two fuel filler ports on the kit, right and left side. The right is correct for a B model and the left for the C model. Delete the appropriate one with some model filler. The tail is for the B model. The C model tail correction was made by the old Cobra Company. It allows you to go either way with your model. B Model had tail replacements done with C model tail booms but they kept the same synchronized elevators. If you wanted to go to a C or M model the Cobra Company resin set gets you there, including new sychn elevators. The tropical air filter comes in the Huey Hog kit, the old bell mouth would have to come from a much older Monogram UH-1 kit, I think it was depicted as an Army Dustoff. It also may have a rotor system that is closer to a B model one There are also some bell mouth UH-1's made by other companies that you rob from the kit. A Fujimi kit maybe??  The weapons provided are decidedly Army systems. The rocket pod is not right for the period and the M-60 guns were swapped out for M-134 mini guns, although some of the earliest ones turned over by the Army may have had them. The Seawolf guys had many variations of weapons they used. You would have to target one illustrated aircraft to scare up some of the right weapons. Lots of pylon variation and lots of door gun variations.

The old Cobra Company resin set is now the property of Lone Star Models as they bought all of the masters. Check to see if it has been brought up again.

 

Chris M

Chris has given great info.  You could also use the Hobby Boss UH-1C kit as a base model.  It has the correct tail and sync elevators but the rotor is a piece of crap that doesn't look like either a B or a C so i'd steal one form a Huey Hog kit along with as much of the interior as you can.  Id id this with a UH-1M drone build a while back and it produced a decent model. However, there is NO armament in the hobby boss kit so you'll need to source it elsewhere.  You can get miniguns  and M157 pods from most of the the ESCI UH-1D/H kits.  The Seawolves also had at least 1 bird in each Detachment armed with a minigun in one door and a 50 Cal in the other.

 

if you want to model a Seawolf B, use the info from Chris above and the M16 weapon system which comes in the Monogram Huey Hog kit is identical to this early Seawolf.  Photo from the Lawson Collection at the National Museum of Naval Aviation.

 

 Image may contain: outdoor

 

Go to the Seawolf.org website for tons and tons of info and photos.  http://www.seawolf.org/index.asp

 

Ray

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4 minutes ago, midnightprowler said:

Can a accurate Huey be built from the Monogram kit oob? No aftermarket?

Strictly speaking, no. The rotor is depicting the 540 system used on the UH-1C. The tail is from a UH-1B. One or the other has to be replaced to be "accurate".

 

Chris M

Edited by Chief Snake
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9 minutes ago, Chief Snake said:

Strictly speaking, no. The rotor is depicting the 540 system used on the UH-1C. The tail is from a UH-1B. One or the other has to be replaced to be "accurate".

 

Chris M

Like Chris said, other than the main rotor and the roof mounted pitot, it's a B model OOB.  I think it's easier to make a accurate B model than an accurate C model form the Huey Hog kit since you only need to get a D?H model rotor and cut it down to 44 scale feet (D/H has a 48 ft main rotor) and add a nose mounted pitot.  The Cobra Company  C model upgrade set is great though if you can find it.  Plus the Seawolves flew more B models than C models. Just my 2 cents.  

    Ray

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