Jump to content

CD48184 - 1/48 CH-53


Recommended Posts

On 12/5/2021 at 1:31 AM, KursadA said:

Just an early draft to validate the profiles and dimensions of Navy markings:

 

rh53dpromos.jpg

A few more views of HM-16 aircraft, in case you haven't seen them - note the absence of the 'circle' around the cockpit UHF antenna:

697500932_344637ab22_k.jpg

Of note is that the horizontal tail band curves to a shallow 'V' shape at the front of the pylon - clearly apparent on 631 here:

51329806900_f0c1ce81ce_h.jpg

 

If there's room for an additional set of squadron titles, tail codes, Modex and BuNos, you could complete the Navy's use of the RH with a VR-24 example:

DF-ST-82-09994.jpeg

DN-SN-85-11101.jpeg

CMkKYFOUkAAg8rS?format=jpg&name=large

rh-53d_158692_VR-24_1981_SIG_1366X768_bo

There's a handful of small photos here - not much use except to confirm the retention of the mirrors, and position of nose codes:

http://www.vr-24.org/Aircraft_photo_pages/Page_two_RH53D_photos.htm

Edited by andyf117
Fixed 'broken' links
Link to post
Share on other sites

What HAJO said!

 

Kursad,  If you include the VR-24 example that Andy suggested and an Iranian early LGG/White and later three tone blue camouflaged one, you probably would have enough for one sheet of just RH-53D Minesweepers. Then you could devote another sheet to USAF Rescue examples including, SEA & Euro 1 camouflaged examples and the Aircraft Gray / White CH-53C's in the "Catch a Falling Star" scheme to go along with the HC-130Ns in 1/72 scale. Just a thought.

Kind regards,

Dutch

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Dutch said:

What HAJO said!

 

Kursad,  If you include the VR-24 example that Andy suggested and an Iranian early LGG/White and later three tone blue camouflaged one, you probably would have enough for one sheet of just RH-53D Minesweepers. Then you could devote another sheet to USAF Rescue examples including, SEA & Euro 1 camouflaged examples and the Aircraft Gray / White CH-53C's in the "Catch a Falling Star" scheme to go along with the HC-130Ns in 1/72 scale. Just a thought.

Kind regards,

Dutch

I was thinking along similar lines:

One dedicated to RH-53Ds: 3 x minesweepers (as depicted), 1 x VR-24, 1 x HMH-772 tri-tone camo, and 1 x USMC grey with red star options.

One devoted to Marine CH-53A/Ds: plenty of potential for gloss green/hi-vis; matt green/low-vis; tri-tone land camo; Desert Storm camo; VIP.

One covering USAF CH/HH-53Cs: SEA scheme with white and black serials; Euro 1 camo; ADC grey with rescue markings; Hickham Grey/White.

 

Then there's one of these - logically, it would go on with the RHs, as that sheet would be predominately Navy:

VC-1_CH-53E_Sea_Stallion.jpg

29030511177_aca4ac8957_b.jpg

 

And, yes, I'm with the guys above - definitely in 1/72, please!

Edited by andyf117
Link to post
Share on other sites
On 12/4/2021 at 10:24 PM, YF65_CH53E said:

just thoughts on a Saturday night…..staring at my stash of 53”s

 

62C9D9F1-A878-4F4F-9CD9-8C3E5CB5F223.jpeg

Hey Gunny! You've got Sikorsky hydraulic fluid running through your veins.  That B-52D is a little bit of an anomaly, don't you think! 🤪 S/f, Dutch

Edited by Dutch
Link to post
Share on other sites
15 hours ago, YF65_CH53E said:

Kursad,

 

the RH-53 marking look fantastic. Are you doing both hi-vis and low vis markings for the USMC 53’s?  In other words I know you are doing a set of the engine gray markings for the USMC RH’s, but are you doing a USMC high gloss white markings? As well as a set of black markings so flat green or tri color cami birds can be done?  The only way to do these as of now is to kit bash the Academy CH-53E, which at over $225 a pop hurts, or try and find old micro scale sheets off the greed bay, and pray they don’t fall apart in the water bowl………

 

As I am sure you are well aware Microscale and Superscale did sheets of aftermarket 1/48 and 1/72 decals.

High Gloss RH-53D like you have

High Gloss CH-53A/D in HMH-463 Hawaiian colors rainbow stripe and pineapple on the nose…..

High Gloss USMC HMX-1 VH-53D in glossy marine green with white stripes. On this sheet is high vis Israeli markings. 
High Gloss markings for a HH-53C doing Aerospace in flight recovery of camera capsules from satellites, stationed in Hawaii as well.

 

But, no markings in all black stencils or black/green stencils.  The re-release of the kit out of Germany does not include the Marine Markings at all. 
 

just thoughts on a Saturday night…..staring at my stash of 53”s

 

62C9D9F1-A878-4F4F-9CD9-8C3E5CB5F223.jpeg

No wonder i couldn't find any 1/72 CH-53E's...looks like you have the market cornered on them.......

Link to post
Share on other sites
14 hours ago, KursadA said:

As I mentioned these are early drafts to validate the dimensions of Navy markings and the base profile - they are in not intended to show all the options that will be on the sheet. The sheet is still a good two months away, we'll have time to finalize the option list with your inputs.

 

What I currently plan to offer on this sheet are:

  • RH-53D,  HM-12,  Navy hi-gloss engine gray
  • RH-53D,  HM-14,  Navy hi-gloss engine gray
  • RH-53D,  HM-16,  Navy hi-gloss engine gray
  • CH-53D, HMH-362, Marines hi-gloss green
  • CH-53D, HMH-772, Marines tri-color camo
  • perhaps another tri-color camo CH-53D from another unit and interesting markings
  • RH-53D, HMH-769, Marines flat gray (the "red star" birds we talked about before)
  • perhaps one Vietnam-era Marines CH-53 from the Saigon evacuation or some such 

Kursad,

 

So I hadn't seen this list when I made my most previous comments above.  I do like all these options, but I too would also like to see the USN VR-1 & VR-24 options. Again, 1/72 would be my prefered scale for the '53.  Also, why not make another international sheet?  Germany (2 or 3 options), Austria, Israel (camo & tan), Iran (LGG/white & camo), & Mexico all flew/are still flying the legacy '53. 

 

I honestly think that the Marine '53s deserve a sheet by itself. There are so many variations (white on green, black on green, combo on green, lt gray on engine gray, the tri color land scheme with black/green lettering, then the tri-gray TPS scheme.  Although, to be honest, I think Dave Roof has covered many of these on his '53E sheets.  Then that brings up another issue of USMC squadrons to be depicted.  There are currently nine active HMH squadrons and two decommissioned HMH squadrons.  And every time the 53s attach to a HMM/VMM squadron for MAU/MEU deployments, they assume the tailcode and squadron number for the host squadron.  So the possibilities are more than enough for one sheet.  I think RepliScale (Spain) did a set of three 1/72 sheets depicting AH-1J/T, UH-1N, CH-46E/F, CH-53D & AV-8A/C from one or two different MEU deployments in the early 1980s. Which brings up the idea of creating a deck diorama with all four or five aircraft types.

 

I think that there would be enough interest from different service folks to sell enough USAF, or Navy, or Marines or International sheets.  Again, just my musings on a Sunday afternoon.

K/r,

Dutch

Edited by Dutch
add detail.
Link to post
Share on other sites

I like the enthusiasm but three CH-53 sheets at the same time probably won't happen. The pandemic and the new EU tax rules have also had an impact and international decal subjects (most of my non-US subject decals only sell well in Europe and UK), so the international CH-53 subjects will have to wait.  I can do one USAF and Navy/Marine sheet or mix/match subjects to come up with two sheets - we'll see when I start working on the USAF subjects later in the month.

 

The VC-1 and VR-24 are easy additions and will hardly take up much space - consider these done.

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, KursadA said:

I like the enthusiasm but three CH-53 sheets at the same time probably won't happen. The pandemic and the new EU tax rules have also had an impact and international decal subjects (most of my non-US subject decals only sell well in Europe and UK), so the international CH-53 subjects will have to wait.  I can do one USAF and Navy/Marine sheet or mix/match subjects to come up with two sheets - we'll see when I start working on the USAF subjects later in the month.

 

The VC-1 and VR-24 are easy additions and will hardly take up much space - consider these done.

I suspected three sheets might be pushing it a bit...

 

....a caveat regarding the VC-1 aircraft; the pic of the pair (153707 UA-02 and 153712 UA-03) shows markings on and around the crew entry doors - below are the only other decent photos that I've located of either of them, and whilst the full-size versions enable some of the wording to be read, most of it can't. I believe aft of the door it says 'Helo Crew Final Tour 1991', with a list of names beneath:

11359866076_098356fd37_h.jpg

49900196293_93161701a8_o.jpg

'03' is, unfortunately, also the 'least interesting' airframe of the three pictured, neither wearing unit badge nor tailcode...

....there are two more pics of '02' here, but they're of little use:

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/registration/153707

Of course, those long lists were presumably only worn for the final flight(s) - prior to that, probably only 'regular' crew names, if any?

Edited by andyf117
Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, andyf117 said:

I suspected three sheets might be pushing it a bit...

 

....a caveat regarding the VC-1 aircraft; the pic of the pair (153707 UA-02 and 153712 UA-03) shows markings on and around the crew entry doors - below are the only other decent photos that I've located of either of them, and whilst the full-size versions enable some of the wording to be read, most of it can't. I believe aft of the door it says 'Helo Crew Final Tour 1991', with a list of names beneath:

 

49900196293_93161701a8_o.jpg

 

For the record I would like to claim copyright of this photo of 153712 / UA-03 which was taken by myself, Michael Baldock, on a tour of AMARC on October 9th, 1994. Always delighted if my photos help Kursad design stuff but I do like photo credit please. Interesting point, if you look very carefully at the nose gear door it appears to have a small Scottish flag, or Saltire, painted on it. If it is helpful I am happy to scan this negative again to show more detail. Michael aka 'Ghostbase'

Link to post
Share on other sites
22 minutes ago, Ghostbase said:

For the record I would like to claim copyright of this photo of 153712 / UA-03 which was taken by myself, Michael Baldock, on a tour of AMARC on October 9th, 1994. Always delighted if my photos help Kursad design stuff but I do like photo credit please. Interesting point, if you look very carefully at the nose gear door it appears to have a small Scottish flag, or Saltire, painted on it. If it is helpful I am happy to scan this negative again to show more detail. Michael aka 'Ghostbase'

Apologies, Michael - this was an image opened directly from the search engine page without actually going through Flickr itself...

....something I do fairly often, as it's simply quicker than navigating through two or sometimes more pages at photo hosting sites...

 

....regarding what you've interpreted to be a 'Saltire' on the nose gear door, I believe that's just the standard marking alongside the 'Tire Pressure' info - as seen very well in one of the close-up RH-53D pics on the previous page...

Link to post
Share on other sites
7 minutes ago, andyf117 said:

Apologies, Michael - this was an image opened directly from the search engine page without actually going through Flickr itself...

....something I do fairly often, as it's simply quicker than navigating through two or sometimes more pages at photo hosting sites...

 

....regarding what you've interpreted to be a 'Saltire' on the nose gear door, I believe that's just the standard marking alongside the 'Tire Pressure' info - as seen very well in one of the close-up RH-53D pics on the previous page...

No apology needed, just marking my copyright 🙂 I remember posting this image on a Facebook group and I pointed out the "saltire" and had no replies so a standard marking it most likely is 👍

Link to post
Share on other sites

Prompted by Michael's claim to the pic of UA-03, I decided to try and track down where I'd originally obtained my downloaded version of the photo of UA-15 - I knew it wasn't the Wikimedia entry that the photo above is linked from, as I also had three close-ups that don't appear there...

....a bit of detective work later, and it transpires that they came from a post by @gmat over at Britmodeller and duplicated right here in the ARC Forum, but with additional pics revealing the BuNo and showing the starboard side:

UA-15 turns out to be the very same 153707 that appears in the above (final flight?) formation photo as UA-02...

....in Grant's shot of the starboard side, of particular interest is the exhaust cover apparently from HM-14's '536'...

Edited by andyf117
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
8 hours ago, KursadA said:

Folks, any ideas what this unit badge might be?

It's the AETC variation on the USAF 50th Anniversary badge - close-up photo here:

http://www.arcair.com/awa01/801-900/awa811-MH-53J-Block/02.shtm

General view of 66-14433 on display at Nellis for the 1997 air show here (link to copyrighted pic):

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/abpic-media-eu-production/pictures/full_size_0495/1751945-large.jpg

You're probably already aware, but the badges are 551st SOS aft of the cockpit window, and 58th SOW aft of the crew door...

....you're on your own with the crew names, though!🤣

Edited by andyf117
Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, andyf117 said:

It's the AETC variation on the USAF 50th Anniversary badge - close-up photo here:

http://www.arcair.com/awa01/801-900/awa811-MH-53J-Block/02.shtm

General view of 66-14433 on display at Nellis for the 1997 air show here (link to copyrighted pic):

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/abpic-media-eu-production/pictures/full_size_0495/1751945-large.jpg

You're probably already aware, but the badges are 551st SOS aft of the cockpit window, and 58th SOW aft of the crew door...

....you're on your own with the crew names, though!🤣

 

Yep that's definitely the 551st SOS here at Kirtland! Have a lot of time refueling those guys from

the MC-130. The 551st is over at Cannon now...I think it's the DSO training squadron. I miss the 

Pave Low....

 

Cheers...Ron

Link to post
Share on other sites

Seven US Navy & USMC options on this sheet, as I mentioned there will be a separate USAF CH-53/HH-53/MH-53 sheet.

  • USN RH-53D BuNo. 158962, HM-12
  • USN RH-53D BuNo. 158755, HM-14
  • USN RH-53D BuNo. 158752, HM-16
  • USN CH-53A BuNo. 153707, VC-1
  • USMC RH-53D BuNo. 158748, HMH-769
  • USMC CH-53D BuNo. 157748, HMH-362
  • USMC CH-53A BuNo. 152401, HMH-772

 

There is also a small, all-black insert (not shown), mostly containing the black national insignia and markings for the three-color USMC camouflaged HMH-772 option.

 

cd48184.jpg cd48184b.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/9/2022 at 3:55 AM, KursadA said:

Seven US Navy & USMC options on this sheet, as I mentioned there will be a separate USAF CH-53/HH-53/MH-53 sheet.

  • USN RH-53D BuNo. 158962, HM-12
  • USN RH-53D BuNo. 158755, HM-14
  • USN RH-53D BuNo. 158752, HM-16
  • USN CH-53A BuNo. 153707, VC-1
  • USMC RH-53D BuNo. 158748, HMH-769
  • USMC CH-53D BuNo. 157748, HMH-362
  • USMC CH-53A BuNo. 152401, HMH-772

There is also a small, all-black insert (not shown), mostly containing the black national insignia and markings for the three-color USMC camouflaged HMH-772 option.

Lovely jubbly - looking forward eagerly to the 1/72 version, which will take care of at least half of my fleet of Airfix kits...

....and with the accompanying USAF sheet to follow, I might even need to acquire a few more...

 

I do have a few observations regarding the artwork:

 

Are two small 'red stars' required? While photos show a large version on each side, and a small one on the nose both in the magazine cover head-on and the pic by @mikeavphoto linked to above, there certainly isn't one on the horizontal tailplane - nor under the fuselage in the pic I posted of the 'plain' star variation...

 

Likewise, the HM-14 'Mine Busters' artwork; I've scoured all the Operation Intense Look photos I can locate, and only found two photos of that insignia, which is officially described as 'unofficial' - both are close-ups of it on a crew entry door, and I can find no photos of it in place on any of the four aircraft deployed, to identify which it was applied to. '532' seems to have been the most heavily-photographed, and there's certainly no trace evidence of the badge having been applied to its port side, seen here being readied for the return Stateside: 

DN-ST-85-04078.jpeg

I'd suggest that whichever aircraft had it, the marking was most likely only ever applied to the crew door - so as with the small 'red star', are two necessary?

 

It's a pity that even if those two items are removed, there still won't be space for any VR-24 markings...

Edited by andyf117
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...