Hi, my wife gave me a helicopter kit from Italery (UH-1 C Mekong Raider scale 1/35 kit nr 373), while inspecting the sprues I noticed that this kit is actually from MRC.
I have no experience with this brand what so ever, so before starting construction, I would like to know from people who have built MRC-kits before ; how is the fit, what about accuracy…[?]
The MRC 1/35 UH-1C is the best Huey kit produced so far. I am still in a “slow” process of building mine. My Unit in Vietnam used the UH-1C. Click on my pofile for the Web page address. Two errors in the kit are the pitch horns B-5 have the “cups” pointed down instead of up. An omission is the short pitch change link from the cup up to the inside center of B-48 “Y” mixing levers. Use parts B-44, pitch control tubes to attach at the ends of the “Y” mixing levers down to B-38 the mixing levers. Look at any good picture of the Huey mast and rotor system to see proper linkage. Those are the “major” mistakes. There are a few more minor ones, but only “nuts” like myself and extreme “nitpickers” would notice them. You can do a search to find previous threads that discussed a lot about the MRC UH-1C. Good luck with your kit. If you want any more info you can E-mail me and I’ll be glad to help you out.
Dan,
By the way what type markings are included in the kit. Army or Navy Unit? What armament is include?
Thanks for the quick reply Mel, it must be great to have first-hand knowlage on the subject, to tell you the truth, I have never seen a real Huey in my life, here in Belgium the army uses the Italian Augusta chopper.
As for the armement, I haven’t got a clue as how those weapons are called, but on one of the pictures on your favourite website, I saw the same weapon that is included in my box, being the nose gun (cannon ???) the side weapons are some kind rocket launchers I suppose, at least they look like a block of tubes…
next time I’ll try to find an image of the box to place here.
The markings are “US Army” from the “Headhunters” and the machine is appently baptised as “Mekong Raider”
If y any chance have some good pictures of the inside, especially the dashbord section, I sure would appreciate them. Further more all "action-shots are welcome, since this will be a diorama project.
I had in mind the classic image of a helicopter hovering low over a ricefield while a GI is strugling to get his wounded buddy in safety…
The only thing is, and I’m sure you can aswer that, is that I don’t know if helicopters with this kind of armament were used to pick up and drop off soldiers…
How do post pictures here ???
Dan,
I don’t know how myself, but there are some instructions in the Forum Index sections somethwhere. I know it involves having a host web site to have your pictures on to be able to post them.
If you can get your hands on a Squadron Signal In Action book on the Huey #1075 it has several good shots to the instrument panel and weapons sights. Also they put out another Huey book but I’m not at home to check it out. I happened to have my SS Huey book with me to see what other details I want to add. I don’t have anything on my computer to E-mail you, my scanner is not working or I would send you a few pictures.
The weapons you discribed are the 40 mm “thumper” grenade launcher and the early style “box” 2.75 rockets. The reason I asked is that in the MRC “Frog” kit with the Sharks decals they give you the “40 mm” and the mini gun kit too. You can make about three different weapons configurations that way. All the other kits just have the one set of weapons.
I am making the “insides” of the pilots doors and hope to make some resin copies of them to be able to “mass” produce several kits. I think I may be up to about 12 different items I hope to do this with.
The action scene you discribed using the gunship would be appropriate if they were attempting to rescue the crew of another downed helicopters. They wouldn’t normally make a pick up of wounded grunts, instead they would be “covering” the Medevac. They were notoriously “heavy” unless low on fuel and all the ordinace was expended.
Good luck with your project!
Thanks on the info Mel, shame about the scanner [|(], after reading your info on the scene I have not decided te go with another scene but I will trie to find another cheap kit of a huey to create wreck. Man this is starting to look like one BIG dio, just hope the wife won’t mind me taking up so much space for one subject.
Normally that’s not a problem since she’s a modeler herself, but two chopper in 1/35 with surroundings… that’s another matter I think.
that’s great.
Well, as promised, here are the first pictures. Well, at least a link to them, keep in mind though that I just started construction last night, so don’t expect too much.
Dan,
Nice start. It is probably too late now but the gunner and crew cheif usually sat in the doorways on the “bottoms” of the jump seats without the backs. I know they only give you one jump seat in the kit. I scratchbuilt a couple upon which I had some “armor” plate laid on top for addtional protection of the “privates”. The legs of the jump seats don’t line up to properly anchor on the floor in those positions except maybe one leg. They usually had small brackets that achored the seat belt ring on the seat to the rear wall. Sorry to give you this info a little late in the game! Looking good so far!
Thanks for the info anyway, and in fact it’s not really to late, maybe tomorrow (well, actually that already today) I’ll see what I can do to scratchbuilt a seat with what I have here in my box (I’m on sickleave so mustn’t leave my home in case the controldocter checks).
Now that you mention the position of seats, the artist who designed the box clearely knew more about it than I, because the gunner sits with his back against the wall.
But as I see it, the legs of the seats can’t be in their responding anchors because of the amunition cannister in the middle of the helicopter. By the way, what weapon is this cannister feeding anyway, because the instructions on that are somewhat vague.
Also I don’t really understand about the bracket (in fact I’m not sure about the meaning of the word, after all English is only my third language after Dutch and French) but what did they do with the back of the seat, dispose it or leave it flat on the bottom
If I understand correctly, the gunner and the crew chief usually didn’t wear their seatbelt ?
Dan,
They wore seat belts that attached to the wall anchors. Normally a bench seat went all the way across the back wall, but the taller 40 mm ammo can prevented this. So they improvised using the bottom section of the jump seats. I’ll see if I can find a good shot on our web page and post the link to the page the picture is on. Some wore “monkey” straps that allowed more movement but kept them from falling out the helicopter.
Dan,
Check out these two pictures. One shows the seat fairly well at bottom of first page, and if you save the second to your computer and “lighten” it up a little you can see the seat in the doorway.
I’ve made an attempt to scratch-built a second seat, well, at came up better than I would have antecipated consedring the stuff I had to work with, this is the result (unpainted).
Is this a more correct configuration for the seats ???
Dan,
That is how they had them located but you need to take the “back” off the seat. You did an excellent job of scratch building the second seat. Sort like a stool instead of a chair. I really need to either get a new scanner or see if mine could be fixed. Keep up the great work!
Believe, me Mel you will be a lot cheaper of buying a new scanner instead letting yours fixed.
Allright, off go the backs (shame, I found the scratchbuild back the best part of my attempt).
I’ll get to word with Photoshop, see what else I can find on those pictures.
Get back to you later…
Dan,
Save the backs to use later if you ever build a UH-1D. A lot of times we had them installed like in your first single seat pitctue and they were facing aft, side by side. Sometimes we also had them back to back facing out. Sorry I was a “step” behind you buddy! I actually have a Huey jump seat and left pilots armored seat along with some other parts.
I had heard I would be better off getting another scaner, but I actually think I have a “software” problem. Ever since I had bought a second hand digital camera and had the software for it installed the scanner “quit” working. It is a combination printer, copier and scanner. Everything esle works!
Just a test to see if I can post a picture.
You have to actually already have your pictures on the internet, then you type the url of the pictures (not the page) between the image tags.
If you have trouble posting the pictures you can also e-mail them to dany.talloen@skynet.be
It was a picture from the Unit Web page but it didn’t allow this type of “linking”. Thanks for your help.