I had an old CH46D Seaknight kit that I was going to use in a diorama, try and pass it off as a RAAF Chinook.
Are the external differences significant ? If its something simple, I may be able to scratchbuild/modify. If its anything significant, I wont use it.
I’m not a huge chopper guy, but, I’d say the similarities end at them both being twin rotors, and would imagine that trying to get one out of the other would be a major task. Your best bet would be to find a Chinook kit.
Yeah, quite a difference, some of the more obvious:
the CH-47 is quite a bit larger
the CH-46 only has sponsons at the rear, the CH-47 has full length sponsons
the CH-46 has its engines burried in the rear pylon, the CH-47 has “pods” mounted above the fuselage
the landing gear is different between the two
I don’t think it would be at all practical to try and convert a 46 to a 47.
[#ditto]
Briefly they are two completely different airframes!
I’d be like pretending a M-47 “Patton” to look like a Panzer VI “Tiger I” (like they do in some movies!), well not quite that drammatic.
Pretend you are a movie producer and mix them up! They used H mode Hueys in place of N’s they took off in and one of the N’s turned into a 412 in “Behind Enemy Lines”. I can’t remember the last movie they mixed up the 46’s and 47’s. Tommy Lee Jones was defending Samuel L. Jackson for killing civilians during a Embassy withdrawal, based on a real story.
As stated above, they are two totally different helos. Here is a comparison from Global Security.org.
That would be “Rules of Engagement”
Why not just buy one of the Italeri or Trumpeter '47s?
Both are reasonable facimiles of the real item and they aren’t overly expensive.
I think I’ll just make it as a Marines version, if I can find some decals. The kit decals are the cheesiest, most out of register, blurred rubbish I’ve ever seen. Worse than Kitech. The box art looks just like the 1/72 Fujimi kit, but all the writing is in Korean. The Idea model company- never heard of them. It was part of a bulk buy from e-bay.
Hi Paul,
IDEA was a Korean company from the mid-late 80’s which “cloned” many kits from Hasegawa, Fujimi, Italeri etc.
I think in many cases they just recast the sprues to make their mould masters. Have a close look at the parts - earlier kits in their range suffered horribly from huge sink marks, shrinkage and “short shots”. Fit of parts is poor and the parts may appear roughly finished. Clear parts may be cloudy and indistinctly moulded. In some cases box art is nearly identical to the original (but poorly copied), with Korean writing.
I’m not sure what is currently out there for decals, but Microscale did some aftermarket decal sets for the CH-46.
Actually Phil, I’m pretty happy with it, (decals aside) considering it only cost me a few bucks. Some of the hardest plastic I’ve ever worked with ! Thanks for the info though.
I beleive the kit in question IS a knock off. I bought a couple of them in 1988 when I was stationed in Korea. There are some subtle differences between the Fujimi kits though. They don’t have quite the level of detail that the Fujimi kits do.
And you are correct, the decals are lame…better to check your sources for appropriate markings. There were at least two seperate CH-46 after market decal sets in 1/72nd but not sure if they are still available. I used a set on the horrid AirFix incarnation of the CH-46 / BV-107 in the early 1980s and the sheet was the best part of the build! Sort of like putting lipstick on a pig.
If you are looking for something a little different, there is a fairly new sheet of markings for the Royal Thai Navy from Siam Scale:
Siam Scale decals are very cheap and excellent quality.
Civilianize it and make it into a firefighting or rescue aircraft!
Im a n00bie to models, so dont bash on me to bad. could he put the crappy stickers on, let them dry, then paint over them like an old civilian conversion? maybe have some of the old military paint showing through?
I don’t think any military CH-46s have ever been converted to civilian use. The civilian birds you see that look like 46s were built as civilian craft - forget the designation - BV-107? Would work as a "what if’ Mad Max or Wingman type scheme though.
Columbia Helicopters has bought a bunch of ex Canadian Forces Labrador / Voyager, they may not be “CH-46s” but they are military. I have also seen a few of their helicopters with the CH-46 window configuration instead of the commercial 107 window configuration.
The mad max theme seems more reasonable as I can’t see a commercial operator flying a CH-46 with painted over markings like some ex-police cruiser bought at auction.
I’m sure that there’s someone out there who can correct me…but I don’t think that the RAAF have CH-46’s…and it’s the Australian Army that has CH-47’s.
As noted, the CH-46 is MUCH smaller than the CH-47…a completely different airframe…same general layout, but smaller.