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Question on Vietnam era H-53s


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Howdy gang,

 

Were the upper canopy windows ("greenhouse windows") tinted green or left clear? I can't tell from the era pictures that I've been able to find.

 

Thanks in advance,

-O

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  • 4 months later...

I just watched a youtube video about the Jollys on a CSAR mission and this is what I was able to determine. In the shots of the cockpit interior, the shade of the outside sky is darker in the overhead windows than in the side windows directly next to the pilot's shoulders. This seems to indicate tinting of some type. The colors of the video are very washed out so I don't know if it was green or blue. 

 

Going by memory which isn't what it once was, I remember an article from Boy's Life, the scouting magazine we all had as kids in the sixties, about the non-stop trans-Atlantic flight by a pair of HH-3E Jollys. In the accompanying photos, the greenhouse windows were definitely green. In the 1990s I made several Navy Reserve deployments to NAS Moffet Field. One of the hangars was shared with the AFRES HH-3 CSAR unit and at that point in time the greenhouse glass was green. I don't see them ever being clear since the idea of the tinting was to decrease sun glare and keep the cockpit interior cool so it would stand to reason that they would've been built that way.  

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On 1/2/2019 at 5:14 AM, oortiz10 said:

Were the upper canopy windows ("greenhouse windows") tinted green or left clear? I can't tell from the era pictures that I've been able to find.

As for me, looks tinted:

Locher-arrives.jpg

 

It’s not so evident, but look:

DM-ST-84-02421.jpg

 

7 hours ago, HCS-5 AO1 said:

I don't see them ever being clear since the idea of the tinting was to decrease sun glare and keep the cockpit interior cool so it would stand to reason that they would've been built that way.

Indeed.

 

Cheers! 🤝

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Thinking about the subject of tinting I remember that at some point in the 70s I came across a tip in the old Scale Modeler or Aircraft Modeler, both defunct since the late 80s, suggesting using Testors or Pactra 'Candy' color top coats that were to be applied over silver or gold base coats to achieve that Candy Apple or whatever color you were going for as window tinting. It was fine if one was tinting a 1/24 scale auto windshield but an absolute mess if you were trying to spray a 1/48 or 72 scale Huey overhead panel. Forget brush painting as that had its own set of problems, number one, getting the paint decanted into a proper container and then trying to not leave brush marks. Not that we all didn't at one time or another decided to charge ahead regardless. 


The day I was shown the new Tamiya clear colors back in the early eighties was a game changer. I bought one of each color and it wasn't too long ago that I tossed that last jar out, yes, I made them last that long. If you close the lids tightly and store them upside down you can get a good seal. Anyway, I find it amazing to look back and see just how far this hobby has come in the way of simple things like clear tintings that have evolved from having to put in more effort than the payoff seemed to be worth to coatings that are thin enough to be brushed on and then cleaned up with water. 

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