UH-3H Sea King - NAS Pensacola 2005 - Fujimi 1/72

[andyf117]

As with a handful of my other completed Sea King builds, this one originally began way back in January 2015 for the Sea King STGB over at Britmodeller, but didn't progress very far at the time...

....choosing to build the model as one of the three aircraft used at NAS Pensacola for Search and Rescue was inspired by finding a number of excellent photos online at the time, the majority of which had been uploaded by one of the base flight's pilots - plus the aircraft each had a feature that distinguished them from all the other H models used in the SAR role...

In addition, the flight had a 'claim to fame' while flying missions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when two pilots found themselves 'on the carpet' for carrying out unauthorised rescue missions after delivering supplies in the area - a story which made national news headlines: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/us/nationalspecial/navy-pilots-who-rescued-victims-are-reprimanded.html One of those pilots later did a short article for Naval Aviation News magazine: https://navalaviationnews.navylive.dodlive.mil/2012/10/27/katrina-from-the-cockpit/

 

As with my previous Point Mugu UH-3A, the following photos are captioned as appropriate...

Out of sight but not out of mind, work on the underside included adding pairs of flat hexagonal and Doppler aerials under the forward fuselage, blanking off the sonar well, fitting three different types of blade antennae, and boxing-off the wheel bays - more on the sponsons is below.

The Fujimi intake guard was replaced by one from a Revell kit - Fujimi's version is the Sikorsky type, which was superceded (but not entirely replaced) by the Westland-style one with its contoured base. I also removed the awful cockpit side window frames as moulded in early issues of the kit, and replaced them with a couple provided as options in the Cyber Hobby kit, that were kindly donated by a fellow Britmodeller. A pair of VOR aerials have been fitted each side of the nose; also visible is the 'rats nest' of wires tangled around the rotor head to busy it up.

Despite having a few different etch sets available that include the crew entry door and steps, as it's a medium I'm not particularly keen on using, I instead added a set of resin steps (cast from a set salvaged from a Revell kit) to the thinned-down kit door. Another distinguishing feature of Pensacola's SAR birds was that the upper door section was frequently removed, to give the rear cabin some airflow when flying in Florida's hot and humid climate!

As mentioned in the intro, Pensacola's Sea Kings had a feature distinguishing them from all the other H model airframes employed by the US Navy on SAR duties, in that the extended sponson fitted to the port side was reduced in length. Fujimi supply the long version in the kit, and after careful matching to a scaled photo to get the correct length it was simply cut down, and its rear, interior and gear well boxed-off - the kit version of the fully-retained MAD sponson to starboard also had its interior sections boxed off. Not visible here (but as can be seen in the general shots above and below), the oil cooler outlet at the rear of the doghouse was blanked off with a piece of plastic card and a decal was applied to represent the flush, rather than recessed, grille, along with a couple more decals for the additional cooling vent on each side.

Added to the starboard upper rear fuselage were blade and box aerials; also seen to good effect in the first of these photos is one of the four lifting rings, which in contrast to the door steps were added from an old part-used etch set, and the strengthening strip made from thin plastic card using another etch set's piece as a template. A square plate aerial made from plastic card was fitted to the top of the tail aft of the anti-collision beacon - the original large single light unit was retained under the nose, but that on the tail was superceded by one featuring a white strobe in the base section, with a separate red upper, represented on the model by a couple of pieces of clear sprue, with the upper section painted Tamiya Clear Red.

Before fitting the sponsons and struts during main assembly, I had very carefully defined the demarcation between the white upper and Light Gull Gray lower areas with masking tape, to achieve a nice sharp, straight line during painting later - only to realise when later examining photos for aerial positions that, in fact, not only was the demarcation quite ragged on the actual aircraft, but it wasn't even at the same level on each side! As it appeared to have been largely painted freehand, I therefore removed the masking tape and did my best to reproduce the original finish in similar fashion. An old tin of Gloy was used for the FS16440 Light Gull Gray, with similar vintage Compucolor FS12197 for the International Orange hi-visibility areas, and an equally old Precision Paints FS11136 for the horizontal stabiliser's tip. Precision FS35237 was used for the main rotor hub and blades, and Humbrol Authentic FS36320 for the tail rotor.

I decided to finish the model as the Flight Commander's aircraft '400' as it appeared in a number of official photographs taken when flying relief missions into New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. With no specific decals available for the desired scheme, I printed my own as shown back in the original thread - with the rescue arrows, intake warnings and a few additional stencil items which required a white background printed on another sheet at a later date. My homemade 'generic' Sea King sheets provided the grilles, exhaust areas and walkways - only the national insignia and tail rotor danger markings came from commercial sheets.

Edited June 6, 2021 by andyf117

[kurnass77]

Nice!!!

 

Gianni

[Hajo L.]

Very cool and colorful Seaking!

 

 

HAJO

[Dutch]

Nicely done!  

[andyf117]

Thanks, gents...