Kitty Hawk 1:35 SH-60b Seahawk: Start to Finish Build

Modeling Subjects Helicopters
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Folding the blades was quite involved.

First the rotor head had to be indexed. So the correct two blades are facing forward and in the correct position. There was a line painted on the swashplate that showed the index if it had to be done manually. Typically an electric motor similar to a starter engaged the rotor brake to turn the head. The motor was on the backside of the main gear box.

Once the head was indexed the hydraulics would move all the flight controls to a certain position. Once in place there was a pitch lock motor on the rotor head that would lock the spindles into their proper angle for folding.

Once the pitchlocks were good the lockpin pullers would open. The bladefold motor would drive the lockpins out. These would unlock the blades from the spindle hinge. Once the lockpin pullers were fully extended they pulled a gear which then engaged a worm drive electric motor inside the cuff on the spindle. This motor would fold the blades back. These would run until they hit the limit switch shutting them off.

Clear as mud.

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While it all makes sense in how it is set up, it still amazes me that the blades just didn’t fly off the rotor head. Aint technology a beautiful thing?

Fabulous build, BTW. I have one of these in the stash. Not sure if I will go to your level, but nice to have a blueprint if I wanted to.

Thanks!

Bob

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Some interesting tidbits about the SH-60B. Sadly they no longer exist in the Navy’s inventory nor do the HSL squadrons that used to fly them.

The aircraft has 13 pop buttons to show if something is clogged or empty.

The tail used to fold automatically

There are two large and very heavy vibration absorbers in the cabin ceiling.

If the MAD towed body hits the water or gets hung up on something it will automatically have the cable cut by a modified .38special cartridge.

There are only 6 driveshafts.

The tail rotor spins at 1100rpm

The main rotor spins at 256rpm

The engine output shafts, or high speed shafts, spin at 30,000rpm.

Every 365 calendar days the aircraft is completely gutted for inspection including draining and entering the fuel tanks.

Every 150 flight hours the aircraft goes through a major inspection A, B, C, and D. The D inspection is the complete teardown of the rotor head.

The rotor head is made completely of titanium.

The entire aircraft is run on what is basically two Commodore 64 computers.

The UYS-1 Spectrum Analyzer, which analyzes the sonobouys signals is smart enough to re-route past failed circuit cards and costs $1.2m dollars to replace.

The aircraft has three software programs that it can run. One is to operate the aircraft. One is to operate the ESM system and the last is for troubleshooting the aircraft systems.

The aircraft data link system is capable of sending voice, aircraft telemetry and video from the FLIR back to the ship. The helo can also allow the ship to control several systems onboard the helo via data link (AKA Hawk link).

The aircraft can be towed down to the flight deck in rough seas using the RAST system. This same RAST system is used to move the aircraft into and out of the hangar aboard ship. (FFG, DDG and CG). (missing from the KH model kit)

The aircraft can carry the following weapon systems:
Mk46 torpedo

Mk50 torpedo

AGM-114 HELLFIRE missiles (with the AAS-44 FLIR installed)

AGM-119 Penguin missiles (with the AAS-44 FLIR installed)

M-60D machine gun

GAU-16 machine gun

Mk240B machine gun

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Now that’s what I love about this forum (all forums for that matter). There’s no way I as a non-naval person I could have ever gained this level of knowledge without the contribution of the folks who join in the discussion. I suspected it was a worm drive turning the blades. The level of complexity to convert the Blackhawk to the Seahawk is staggering and tells you a lot about the increase in costs to design craft to serve in more than one branch. I suppose the Blackhawk would also have some way to index the blades and lock them so they wouldn’t windmill when sitting on the ground in strong breeze.

I finished the rotor head, did the repaint, connected the deice lines, and refinished the blades including painting the pop-out nitrogen leak indicator. I also did the anti-collision belly light and finish painted the rear landing gear. I fixed all the blade lock indicators putting on fresh little slivers of PE fret to complete them. They do need some touch up paint. And I notice that I didn’t trim the phos-bronze rotating pins.

There may be a few more areas needing attention such as cleaning up the accent around the blade bolts.

While mounting the rotor and attempting to position the blades into the holders, I broke one of the holders. I also knocked off one of the blade clamps. I drilled both and pinned them.

Ran out of time today to put it all back together. I also broke off the engine hatch by grabbing the model in the wrong spot. It’s a very delicate beast. It will be finished on Monday.

So everyone have a happy Super Bowl Sunday! I’d like Cincy to win, but really don’t care who does as long as it’s a good game that doesn’t embarrass anyone.

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Big day! Had a gall bladder imaging session this morning to see if it’s working right and finished the Seahawk this afternoon. Won’t know about the gall bladder for a couple of days, but you’ll learn about the finished Seahawk tonight.

Before putting the rotor on I had to get the tail boom on. I chose to use epoxy putty since there wasn’t much gluing surface for conventional adhesive AND the surfaces themselves were not very secure. I put a wad of putty on the back of the fuze side of the ResKit hinge component and pushed the parts together. Had to hold it for a while by hand and then used some tape. The putty cures pretty fast, and while this was going on I removed a lot of the stuff that had oozed out of the joint all over the place.

After it cured I did more fine cleaning using various dental tools. BTW: you may want to ask you dentist if he has any tools that are no longer usable in the practice, but could be very useful for us modelers. I got a bunch from my dentist. After cleaning I had to go back and touchup paint any areas that degraded during all this fussing.

I did final touchup on the main rotor, trimmed all the extra-long pins that are now holding the blade hubs, and did final finish on all the wires and bits.

I had to repair the rear blade brace since it fractured right near the fuze joint. Don’t know when it happened. I drilled and pinned it. Not easy with the model so far completely and the brace glued to it. Kitty Hawk styrene was a bit brittle and broke way too often way too easily. The rotor went on easily and all the blades aligned perfectly with the braces. Miracle!

I then remembered that I had to add paint and add the missile warning sensors that go onto the port and strbrd EMS pods in front, and the HF antenna wire. I also had to reattach the open engine cover this time with wire. It’s now a bit flexible so you can bump it without it fracturing off. CA is too darn brittle!

For the antenna, I used E-Z Line Lycra inserted into a 0.030" Albion micro tube held with some thin CA. For those that haven’t use E-Z Line, it’s great for rigging antenna and small naval ship rigging. It is hugely elastic and when slightly stretched stays taut. It also glues almost instantly with thin CA. I think it has to do with the huge surface area within the fiber itself. The stands making up the yarn are very fine. The tube was inserted into a hole I drill in the fuze at the antenna entry point. Also a pain in the butt since the model (including the rotor) was already there and in the way.

With that it was done. I still plan on doing the base, but the model stands on its own nicely. Here’s the album.

So there you have it. Work started in mid-Oct and ended in mid-Feb about 4 months of pretty intensive work. My opinion of the model:

Pros:

  1. Beautiful surface detail especially with the addition of the ResKit parts.

  2. Lots of choices on build and configuration. (Huge amount of parts still left on many sprues.)

  3. It’s a great model in a great scale. You can really go to town on super-detailing.

Cons:

  1. Instructions leave something to be desired. Terrible instructions on creating the stowed version

  2. That reversed part HD33 that i had to redraw and 3D print.

  3. Styrene was fragile and broke at the worst possible times. You better be a good problem solver.

  4. The ResKit parts did not mate 100% accurate with the kit’s requiring further problem solving.

  5. Fits - While having the interior as a separate box seemed like a good idea at the time, in reality it made getting a good main joint nearly impossible requiring a lot of filling.

It was singularly the most complex aircraft build I ever did and I’ve been building models almost non-stop since 1954 at my 9th birthday. I’ve made a practice recently to have each project I attempt to push my skills. This project did not disappoint. That said, I love how the rotor head and engine came out. They met the image I had in my mind’s eye and for that all the work was worth it.

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Very nice. She came out great.

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Superb work Builder

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Ahh you’re going to kill me.

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Nah, great job and now I’m even more concerned about trying to build mine!

Hope I would not be stepping on anyones toes if I did the same thing if and when I eventually start mine. Make a build thread that is. Although mine would be more about correcting the kit.

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Thanks all! It’s a free country. You can post any thread you’d like AND I’d be interested to see how you tackled all the challenges that I fumbled my way through. I know you’ll have it dead on…

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As an epilog… Here’s what my work space looks like when I’m done.

This phenomenon only occurs every so often when work is done. Sadly, it doesn’t last very long.

And here’s my high-tech method of dealing with the sharps that are created constantly. I buy my #11s in the 100 piece packs and change then very often, especially when using it to cut decals, masking, bare metal foil, etc. I toss them all in a yogurt container and when full, tape the darn thing shut and toss it in the trash. I don’t handle them any more than I have to. Being an AFid person and on a blood thinner, I try and not cut myself.

Lastly, when I said there were a lot of unused parts, I wasn’t kidding. These are not all of them. I threw out a bunch of sprues that had parts on them besides these. It seems like a lot of waste.

Well… that’s that. Next up will be the massive Missouri Turret project. I’m still waiting for the kit and guns to come to my local hobby shop. I’m finding more and more reference images and am busy drawing all the parts. I’m posting the whole deal on the ships part of this forum.