I’m working on a minicraft models Blackhawk, and I was wondering, would a helicopter ever have a gloss black scheme? I have some model masters classic black paint, and it comes out real shiny.
Not very likely. Special Ops BlackHawks of 160th SOAR are really, really, flat blak, some faded to a dark gray. Check out my MH-60L DAP in my Showcase III below to see what I mean. I have never seen a military version in gloss black. Even if your paint is gloss, it can be made flat witha couple coats of dull coat (flat lacquer sealer).
Aw man. Oh well. Is your blackhawk the minicraft one, too?
Actually, If you’re up for some minor conversion, US Customs Black Hawks are gloss black with gold trim:
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2002/October/other/helicop.xml
In fact, Minicraft released a 1/48 Customs Black Hawk. I see them at Hobby Lobby all the time.
They’re not super gloss black, more like somewhere between gloss and semi-gloss
Ok, that will work. I’m making it for asomeone, who is a civilian pilot, so I’ll go without the guns and everything.
Nope, 1/35th Academy MH-60L DAP 160th SOAR.
You can read more about it here if interested: http://www.hkngallery.org.uk/hkngallery.nsf/0ad8b7e3f00ae88480256b9600463ec8/5791a1737448781580256fae000c7b2b!OpenDocument
Forgot about a US Customs UH-60A. They do look pretty cool and are gloss black.
Apparently the Department of Homeland Security uses gloss black UH-60As too.
They got them when Customs became part of Homeland security
Our Counter drug birds are all gloss black. I can’t say much about what and how many … but we have more than one or two gloss black helo’s.
Are they armed?
Not as far as I know, they use them mainly to shadow drug-running aircraft and then land with agents to arrest them(wish they would sometime when the bad guys don’t want to co-operate). Have some based in Tuscon too.
I remember seeing US Customs Blackhawks back in 1995 when I was doing some training down in San Angelo Texas.
Don’t forget the NSAWC SH-60F that’s painted semi-gloss black. If you want I’ve got a couple photos of this bird and their brown/tan camo Hind simulating Blackhawk, that I took back in 2003. Let me know if you want the pics.
Sal,
The pics would be great. Can you post them here?
No, our counter drug birds are not armed. Not with bullets anyway.
I used MM Us Army Helo Drab for my BlackHawks it came out pretty good, well to me it looked alright. The BlackHawk color scheme is always a interesting topic??
Good But HTH
Robert
Sure, I’d like those pics Sal.
Robert, You used the perfect paint for a green UH-60. The Testors Helo Drab is an out of the bottle match for the color used on a standard UH-60. Flat black is only used on the 160th SOAR MH-60L DAPs as are all 160th SOAR birds for that matter (well, after about '93-'94 timeframe anyways).
I just passed all my photos on to Unknownpharoah. I gave him shots of VC-13’s F-5’s, NSAWK’s F-16’s & F-18’s, and lots of other stuff including the threat center’s Hind and Hip. Since they’re located on my computor and I don’t have a webpage, I’m not sure how I would get them on line to show them here.
Maybe unknownpharoah knows how.
Sal,
You can post them to a free hosting site like Photobucket or one of the others. Then you can either directly link them to here, or you can post the link to your album with them in it.
Gino,
I actually just got finished trying to open an account with Armorama (following your lead), however I had some problems when I tried to finish and it displayed a message saying “my e-mail addresses didn’t match”. Well I re-checked my submission and they DID in fact match, sooooo I wrote an e-mail to the webmaster.
If this works out I’ll post them on my new (hopefully) account with Armorama. If not, I’ll open an account with Photobucket.
Stay tuned folks. I’ll post a reply on this thread when they’re up.
Sal
PS.Gino, if you hit my persanl e-mail adress with a mickey, I’ll respond and send you what I’ve got. DO you have space for 10 MB?
Sal,
Whoa, 10 MB might be too much for my email account. I’ll wait and see if you get them uploaded. Thanks though.