Having fun with the old Panda twin huey in its non-gunship boxing. The bird I’m doing was a combination base utility and SAR unit, so I don’t have to worry about adding (or correcting) all the combat accoutrements; it’ll be more or less OOB with a few additions to dress up the cockpit and cabin a bit.
IP is the kit-supplied decal with a random assortment of left-over etch bezels and a few decal data plates added. I also couldn’t resist adding a bit more-detailed switch panels to the kit collective parts.
For the rear cabin I added a ‘spares’ fire extinguisher, plus belts and headphones made up from white-glued tissue and styrene scraps. For SAR equipment I put in some ‘spares’ duffles (from a 1/25 police vehicle) and made up a rough facsimile of a typical ‘Huey’ rescue hoist from tubing bits and lead wire. I’ll add in a few more duffles and such before ‘buttoning up.’
Much appreciated, Gino. Your various builds have been the source of great inspiration over the years, including for this kit!
As to markings, I found some neat photos of NAS Bermuda’s utility/SAR bird…it’s marked in standard red/white ‘Abandon Chute’ markings, only with the colorful base seal on the doors instead of the ‘RESCUE’ lettering. Fortunately a square-on shot of the door and seal was clear enough to make into decals, so I’ll ditch most of the kit markings for home-made. [:D]
Adding a few details to the nose ‘bubble’ areas using copper & lead wire and some home-made decal graphics.
Clipping the cockpit door window parts from their sprues to install them before assembling the fuselage, those clear parts proved to be very brittle and susceptible to cracking. Fortunately no ‘visible’ damage done…but I’ll use my micro-saw to remove the rest. (Already done on the windscreen, and everything was fine.) The bad news is that the windscreen itself is a little blurry and could use some buffing and polishing, but I’ll have to go easy to avoid pressure hazing.
Small update on the unexciting parts, with work proceeding apace.
No ‘beauty’ shots, but major construction is finished, with installation and masking of clear parts underway. Minor kit alterations included metal screens (actually sections of Eduard etched perforated floor plate, which resembled available photos) added to replace the molded intake grids on the engine cowling shrouds. Also adding details like reinforcement struts (from styrene rod stock) to the roof and underside cable cutters.
The kit’s decals–whatever their quality–were designed for a dark-color scheme with all-white letters and numbers supplied, and almost nothing in the way of stencilling or service-markings. Since the aircraft I’m portraying needs fairly straightforward black markings, I was able to lay them out (along with a small cross-section of standard stencilling) in MS-Paint and print them on clear decal paper with my trusty inkjet. (A smaller sheet of interior cabin markings and colored warning labels was printed on a white background.)
During the height of the Cold War, squadrons of sub-hunting P-3 Orions operated from the US Naval Air Station located on the former site of Kindley Air Force Base in Bermuda. Their role was to intercept and shadow Soviet ballistic-missile carrying submarines in the Atlantic and moving toward the US’s east coast. In addition to sub-hunting aircraft, NAS Bermuda operated a number of HH-1N Twin Hueys as utility aircraft, and in the vital Search & Rescue roles.
BuNo 158290 seems to have been among the last of these choppers, serving until the base’s closure in 1995. Two online photos I found seem effectively to ‘bracket’ the former Marine helicopter’s service with the Navy in Bermuda: one was taken during a base ‘Open House’ day in 1990; the other, taken in 1995, shows the bird on its way to retirement at the Davis Monthan AFB ‘Boneyard.’ The consistency between those two photos lends a wonderful confidence to the would-be model builder, showing a number of particular features that seemed unchanged throughout that term of service.
Features shown in the ‘bookend’ photos include the older-style ‘towel rack’ tail-boom aerials instead of the zigzag ‘long line’ VHF aerial; no mounting of the underside cargo hook; and the absence of any ‘safety’ markings on the all-black main- or tail-rotor tips.
It’s looking really good - it’s just a beautiful colour scheme, but not the easiest to do right! I have built something like that myself, as a gift for my brother, in 1/48 (Italeri). This one’s from Yuma (You get to know some exotic destinations building those rescue helos!):
