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UH-60A - time to walk the walk...


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Hello everybody! i have been following many of your builds and they are all wonderful and inspiring! being a former UH-60A crew chief, i have been wanting to build the very aircraft i have worked on and flown in, and after many, MANY years of procrastination, i am going to post my first online build of two UH-60A's - one will be my C2 bird while i was a part of R Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment while deployed to Bosnia, 1997-98, and the other will be a buddy's bird while a part of 3rd Flight Platoon, 377th Medical Company (Air Ambulance), H-805, Cp Walker, Taegu, Korea, 1995-96. This will be a very slowly updated web journal, but i hope that by going public with these, I will be pushed to do my very best as these models are very personal to me and a labor of love. I would also hope that if you catch me slipping or taking shortcuts that you will call me on it and keep me honest, since I get impatient with myself at times and I dont want to cheat myself or these projects.

I have already had these kits in my stash for may years, and have had a bit of a start on one of them, but here is what i am starting from:

35916756970_ea944dd69b_o.jpgP3160047 by Ramon Lomeli, on Flickr

 

The UH-60L kit on the right is actually an Alpha right out of the box, but i will address the differences as i progress through the build. I have had this kit since it was first released back in 2000 or 2001. The AH-60L DAP bird is actually an MH-60 but with all the sprues for every kit released by academy, so if you know what you are looking at and what you want to build, this kit will have everything you need to make it happen, including the internal hoist which benefits me as i build the Dustoff bird.

my progress so far - the kit interior is full of inaccuracies, so there will be much scratch building and aftermarket assistance. To begin, two things that stand out for me are the pilot seat frames and the H-bar for the crew chief seats. i have corrected as follows:

36176743521_8f6a7628a1_o.jpgP3160049 by Ramon Lomeli, on Flickr

out of the box, the seat frames are too tall, so i cut them to size. Stock on right, corrected center and installed on left.

 

Next up, the H-bar:

36143912002_d13b462f94_o.jpgP3160050 by Ramon Lomeli, on Flickr

uncorrected on the right, corrected on the left. the two crew chief (CE) seats mount on the outer bars facing out, while provisions are there for a rear-facing seat between the two CE seats, and although i have never seen it used, another side facing seat can be installed forward of the two CE seats on the long bar in the middle. as it comes in the kit, this extra seat would never fit, so i cut and reattached the forward bar off to the side where it belongs.

it is very late now, i have a wife with a broken foot and a daughter that needs help getting on the bus in a few hours, as well as a kitchen that is in the middle of being remodeled, which means my garage is not mine until it is done, so i will not get to updating this post for a few days at best, but as i progress i will post pics. any and all comments are welcome, especially if you happen to have pics of a C2 console from the 90's, otherwise i am scratch-building that from memory.

Cheers!

-Ramon

Edited by anvil6
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A couple more pics of what I have done up to now... these will be touched up and cleaned up before final installation:

P3160052.jpg

the stock cabin ceiling is on bottom. As you can see, it is pretty much a bland bald piece of sheet plastic. The one above is my enhanced cabin ceiling. I drilled out holes for the three cabin lights, drilled out and scratch built a box to hold the troop commander's hand set and added some coiled wire to it. I also drilled out two small holes for the heater vent controls forward of the CE seats, cut out a section of ceiling where the (i think) #2 relay panel is, above the left hand CE seat. I had it covered with clear plastic but i put the hinge on the wrong side, so i have removed it and now i have to reinstall it correctly. The drip pan is made from thin sheets of layered plastic, and i glued soem paper over the entire ceiling piece to simulate the soundproofing, with strips of plastic to simulate the soundproofing hinges. these will need to be tidied up a bit, but my second one will come out a bit neater to begin with.

P3160053.jpg

i also cut away the section of upper cockpit console so that it may be replaced with the resin part from Cobra Company's UH-60 interior set. Yup, I definitely need to do some touch up on this part...

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Great looking hawk so far Anvil!

Glad we got another hawk crew chief here!!!

Tim

Thanks Tim! I hope you can back me up on some details and memories, since i got out in 99... when were you in? where did you go?

-Ramon

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Good job. I like your treatment of the ceiling.

Thanks Gino! i still have to go back and tidy it up a bit... you and everyone else on this forum set the standard pretty high so i want to bring my A-game to the show! :)/>

-Ramon

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Nice to see also a "regular" ceiling, good work here

Norbert

Thank you, Master Norbert! I have studied your Black Hawk build religiously and I will refer to it often, especially when it comes to fixing the HIRSS exhaust. You nailed it with your build, and if mine comes out a fraction as good as yours I will be satisfied! :worship:/>

-Ramon

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Thanks Tim! I hope you can back me up on some details and memories, since i got out in 99... when were you in? where did you go?

-Ramon

No probem with the backup buddy!

I was in during the mid to late 80's at Ft. Bragg with 2nd Battalion/82nd Aviation Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Tim

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No probem with the backup buddy!

I was in during the mid to late 80's at Ft. Bragg with 2nd Battalion/82nd Aviation Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Tim

AA huh? did you go to panama in 89? i did some time at Fayettnam too, but with 4/2 ACR. ten months after i got there, the unit moved to Ft. Polk to join the rest of the regiment. deployed to Bosnia from there. before that, i was in the medevac stationed in Taegu, ROK, and my first duty station was with 4/6 cav at Ft hood. fun times! :)

-Ramon

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Floor_n_ceiling_Plan.jpg

so going through the forums and studying other people's build, i came across a link to the technical manual illustrations showing the floor and ceiling plans to scale. i cant find that link, but if this was yours, please let me know so that i can give you credit. anyways, i downloaded and printed the image and made a copy to use as a plan, and the other copy I cut out and glued to the ceiling and floor, then I drilled the appropriate holes.

P3160062.jpg

this is what i ended up with, as seen from underneath. i will have to go back and tidy up the part inside the cargo hook hole, but the rest of it will be hidden away. what i did was drill all the way through using the paper templates, then i glued strips of plastic to the bottom of the floors to make them not go all the way through. next, i turned the floor over and painted each recess with white glue, building up a ledge around each hole. that was the Poorman's way of doing that. for my second Hawk, i will drill as before, but use the eduard photoetch bezels around the floor tiedowns

P4210052.jpg

I also cut out and boxed in the avionics wells underneath the pilot seats. i scrounged around my spares box and found a set of radios to install underneath the copilot's seat. i think they are P-38 radios but i aint going to sweat it since they have a vinyl cover attached with velcro in real life and are hard to see clearly, and i will simulate the covers on these models as well. i still have to scrounge for parts for underneath the pilots seat. in reality there are a few more radios and the master brake cylinder as well.

P4210050.jpg

the center console is Cobra Company. the non-skid stripes are a bit stark, so i will go back and tone them down. in fact, from what i remember they were often just a darker shade of grey, and worn and scuffed away to reveal the zinc primer and composite fiber floor panels, so i still have work to do on the floors here. in fact, i have only just begun...

Edited by anvil6
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Great job on the floor.

If I have it correct, the cargo floor was painted all grey, but the paint does not hold very much on the non skid strips, so the strips color (rubber black probably) comes out.

You can reproduce that by spraying a transparent coat of grey on your floor.

take care with the strip of styrene under the floor in the winch hole : this hole shows on the helicopter bottoms and it may affect the winch position.

Norbert

Edited by norbert
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The floor looks really good. Looks like you found the Eduard floor template from their UH-60 Interior PE set. Good job on it.

Thanks, but the illustration is not the eduards one, its straight from the pubs. someone posted it on ARC forums, i downloaded it and penciled in my own notes. i have to remember to keep referring to it, and i think i will try to simulate the Zip screws in the ceiling soundproofing and the tiedown studs in the floor recesses.

Edited by anvil6
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Great job on the floor.

If I have it correct, the cargo floor was painted all grey, but the paint does not hold very much on the non skid strips, so the strips color (rubber black probably) comes out.

You can reproduce that by spraying a transparent coat of grey on your floor.

take care with the strip of styrene under the floor in the winch hole : this hole shows on the helicopter bottoms and it may affect the winch position.

Norbert

thank you Master Norbert! you are right about the patch on the cargo hook hole, i noticed it as i was posting the pic... i will have to figure out a way to correct that! as for the non-skid paint, it was actually very crappy black paint, with wood splinters mixed in. i actually saw it fresh from the can one day. i always wanted to replace it with grip tape from a skateboard, something like what the air force uses in their C-5 cargo areas, but noooooo, the technical inspectors i had just said it couldnt be done without reconfiguring the CG & weight and balance yada yada yada... thats what i get for asking permission. i should have just done it... anyways, i only ever saw one aircraft that was factory fresh, and it came with dark grey stripes on the cargo floor. (side note: that was a 2ID bird with less than 100 hrs and it still had that new car smell. the crew crashed it on our airfield in Taegu about 40 feet in front of me. everyone walked away from it, and after a while, suddenly all of our birds had a bunch of factory fresh parts to replace the ones that were non-operative... :whistle:/>/> ) all the other aircraft i saw had the same grey overall, non-skid stripes and everything. the paint wore off quickly, especially in the back floor panel between the aft row and rear-facing row of seats. under the grey was zinc chromate green, and tannish brown under that, if i remember correctly. the only metal in the floor was the tie down ring assemblies, and all the rivets on the outer floor frames at the opening of the main cabin doors. they would scuff to a silver color right away. i still have to go back and add all that in. i almost got my garage back from all the mess created by a kitchen remodel, so i might be able to get back to working on that hopefully soon! :)/>/>

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Good work on the floor.

Does anybody have that floor template for an Australian Blackhawk at all? The recess/tie down points are in different areas but not sure what model to use as reference? UH-60A? Ours are designated S-70-A, initial deliveries in 1988.

bh_zpsoekcdpwn.jpg

bh1_zpskmru71jl.jpg

Edited by UH-1Mad
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Wow, I've never seen that tiedown layout before. That must be an Aussie mod!

Should be pretty easy to replicate though.

Just use the layout that's in this forum. (I'll have to look around and find it, but a guy named dave made it up) and then add the rest of the different tiedowns.

Tim

Edited by hawkwrench
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Thanks hawkwrench, I already have the template, I was just trying to save some time and hair pulling that is sure to come trying to modify it. Was hoping there might have been one already made up by the gods!

Chris.

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Accuracy is much cooler to me than fancy scratch built fantasy.

hey thats cool. some people really like the miniature recreation of real life machinery and vehicles. Other people like kit-bashing and just making things look cool, regardless of trying or wanting to be accurate. with this pair of Hawks, i want to recreate them as i remember them, through years of first hand experience, but with other models where i dont have a personal connection, i just want to make something that looks cool on my desk at work, and i dont want to be pinned down to 'making it accurate' at the expense of having fun and relaxing at my work bench.

different people have different preferences, and thats ok, much like religion. and like religion, its cool to have it, and its cool to be proud of it, just as long as one does not try to convert people because they think their way is the "right way". its always cool to get constructive feedback, but once someone says they want to go down a different path and then someone else keeps trying to tell them they are wrong, then that person becomes a jerk.

welcome to ARC. observe, participate, makes friends and learn new things, but dont ever let yourself become a jerk. as the great Shepard Paine said most wisely, "simulate, dont duplicate"

just my dos pesos...

Cheers!

:)/>/>

-Ramon

Edited by anvil6
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