I recently picked up 5 Italeri UH-34J Seahorse kits ; as I’m starting to compile a collection of 1/72 scale Sikorsky and Westland H-34/S-58 Helicopter kits and after market decals and photo etch accessory’s .
I already had 3 UH-34J Seahorse kits in my stash that came with the V style landing gear . Even though the box art shows the H-34 with the early style bent leg landing gear ; I mistakenly thought that when Italeri called the helicopter kit “UH-34J” this ment that we got the later V landing gear struts .
My 5 recent purchases arrived in the mail this week from three different hobby stores and even though the kits are labeled as UH-34J Seahorse , unlike the 3 kits already in my stash the newly arrived H-34’s all have the early bent leg style landing gear .
I will still build the kits but I would have liked to build 3 more H-34’s with the V style landing gear ; I wish italeri would leave both types of landing gear on the sprue or at least offer two different versions with different box art .
Sorry if it seems like I’m having a whinge , it just seems the H-34 kits with the V style landing gear don’t come around very often .
Giving both patterns of landing gear would have been way too easy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the aircraft designation that determined the gear, but the point in the production history. The same is true with the kicksteps up to the cockpit.
I don’t believe I have a color picture on file of that Sikorsky demonstrator, but I’ll see what I can find out for you.
Thanks for the info , I do have your illustrated History H-34 Book and Its an awesome book , I also have the sikorsky HH-52A book .
I understand what your saying about the designation of the helicopter during the point of production , many photo’s in your book show the UH-34J with both landing gear styles ; It’s just the way Italeri box their kit without giving the modeler any idea of what we are getting…very frustrating
I’m waiting on the arrival of an Westland Wessex book I ordered recently along with some more 1/72 scale Sikorsky/Westland H-34/S-58 kits . At last count of whats in my stash and what I have ordered there are 11 UH-34J kits , 7 HU-5 Wessex and 5 HAS-3 wessex , lots of aftermarket decals for the wessex birds along with some resin and PE stuff . Also 3 Hobbyboss H-34’s [2UH-34D’s and 1 UH-34A] , it’s a shame Hobbyboss molded the droop in the main rotors upside down , I snapped two rotor blades trying to bend them back the opposite way , I’ll have to be more carefull with the other two sets of hobbyboss rotors .
The UH-34J kits with the Bent gear legs came from overseas online hobby stores , the three with the V style landing gear I picked here locally in Australia , so I took the gamble and ordered 5 more UH-34J kits yesterday and this morning from some local hobby stores , I’m kinda hoping they might have the V style landing gear , if not , your book has plenty of reference photo’s for lot’s of other options .
That is odd, I have one Italeri UH-34D kit with the bent leg landing gear, and several UH-34J kits which so far all have the V style landing gear, although I haven’t checked every one of them. It really would be nice if they included or at least clearly labeled which style was in the box (which to this point I thought they did).
I’ve been buying the Hobbyboss kit as needed for aircraft with the bent leg, but have been hoping Italeri would bring back their UH-34D since the Italeri kit is better. Worst case I’d be willing to swap you a few V style parts for the bent leg, but I think shipping would make that somewhat unattractive.
The overall colors for that particular Sikorsky S-58 demonstrator are medium grey and dark blue. Go to www.airliners.net and do a search on N866 – your best bet for matching will be to find paints that will give you the same shades as the Chicago Helicopter S-58Cs. There were a couple of other demonstrators, none of them with identical schemes.
Hope you’ll post some images during the builds, or at least of the finished products. I’ve got a pair of the Italeri UH-34D kits set aside for an S-58C conversion and my ship’s hack in Vietnam.
That was exactly my thinking Aaron ; the original Italeri Seahorse kit was labeled UH-34D and the 2007 release was labeled UH-34J , [ despite having the same box art picture as the earlier UH-34D kit ]
My purchases are quite recent , if you have had your UH-34J kits for a while now , like my first three kits , they will probably have the V style landing gear . Italeri may have fired up the mold to issue more and most likely didn’t think many modelers would worry about the different landing gear styles ; and as Len mentioned , it would be just to easy to include both . The rest of the UH-34J kits I’ve ordered should arrive by the end of next week , I would be interested in a bent gear leg for a V style landing gear swap , I’m happy to absorb the shipping costs by adding some locally produced aftermaket decals or resin kits etc , I’ll just have to wait and see what’s in each box when they arrive , there coming from four different hobby shops .
I’m hoping to get some paint on at least three of the H-34’s this weekend , maybe even six would be great ???
S-58T in Air America official colors , Hobbyboss UH-34A for the RCAF and the UH-34D VNAF and if all goes well three Italeri birds , UH-34A US. Army , UH-34D USMC ‘Evil Eyes’ and another AAM UH-34D .
Wow ! What a collection , Now thats a ’ Group Build’ for real , Can’t wait to see it all finished . Looks like you have the rotors all worked out but can I ask please ? Where are all the interior seats from? .I have some of those kits but do not remember seeing any ? I think I will have to open them all and see which one has and which hasn’t .
All the Italeri UH-34J Sea Horse kits come with cabin seating as does the Wessex HU-5 ; Only the Wessex HAS-3 kit doesn’t include rear seating .
I have four H-34’s ready for decaling ;
USMC “Evil Eyes” and VNAF UH-34D’s ; Also a West German H-34G I and a US.Army H-34A . I found some spare nose antenna in a Italeri H-21C ‘Shawnee’ flying banana kit , so I decided to use those on the army bird . I’ll continue airbrushing this weekend and hopfully have some more ready for decaling shortly .
Four more HAS-3 kits arrived during the week along with some ‘Modeldecal No.99’ Royal Navy decals ; I like the dark blue/gray and red scheme , also the overall light stone finish for a MK-1 Wessex .
Five more HU-5 kits also arrived with the Modeldecal No.96 Royal Navy sheet ; There is a dark olive green and red scheme and I also will do an overall yellow scheme.
A modeler over at ARC was selling a lot of kits , I bought a few helicopter kits from him including a Matchbox HAS-31 and a Italeri UH-34D . I have some Aussie decals for a RAN Wessex and I can’t decide between a Navy VC-8 Sea Bat or another Marines Sea Horse .
I still have another seven UH-34J kits on order , I’m hopfull that one or two of them may have the V style landing gear , I only had three kits with the V-style landing gear , I started the second one and I’ll build her as a Apollo Recovery Marines helicopter No. 44
Thanks Helo 53 , this would explain it , I have the Itelari and the Revell and the Matchbox H.A.S. 31 and non have seats , and it looks like you have the market share of the rest of them . You must be the reason we cant find them on the shelves anymore. [proplr]
Some very nice work going on in your hanger , can only imagine how they will all look when completed [:D[
It’s probably why I had to visit Hong Kong , England and the US online to find some more UH-34J and HU-5 kits . I did notice recently that some hobby stores were stocking Tamiya helicopter kits , which are ex-Italeri molds , I realize it’s wishfull thinking on my part but it would great if Tamiya would consider re-issueing this one …
I found the Tamiya box art pic while searching the net ; Also seeing that Revell seem to have lots of their HAS-3 kits in the shops , it would great to see them re-issue the H-34G kit…
I pray everynight to the Lord Helicopter that this might happen and I promise only to buy 5 or 6 of each kit , so to leave plenty of others for the rest of you guy’s
