Academy? UH-1Y? Had no idea Bell was still upgrading the Huey. Thanks for the information.
Looks like a cross between air wolf and the H model
Yup, the Huey lives. The USMC is still using the latest models; UH-1Y Venom and AH-1Z Viper. They are very similar at the basic level and share about 85% of parts.
Academy does models of both in 1/35. They are both excellent models as well.
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So, paint it basic gray?
No, they are in a three-tone gray scheme.
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Upper Surfaces: Medium Gray (Federal Standard 35237) on top areas facing the sky.
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Sides and Vertical Surfaces: Dark Ghost Gray (Federal Standard 36320) along the fuselage sides and vertical tails.
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Lower Surfaces: Light Ghost Gray (Federal Standard 36375) on the bottom areas facing the water/horizon.
These show it pretty well.
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USN/USMC TPS… Tactical Paint Scheme. As Gino described above, it is VERY effective in a maritime environment. Particularly when there is the usual haze conditions off of the ocean. I used to see Marine choppers flying along the coast for many years and in that scheme you would hear them long before you could see them in the TPS scheme in most daylight conditions.
Problem is you can still hear them coming. Supposedly the makers of the OH-6 found a way to dull the sound of the rotors by adding an extra blade. Not sure if it actually worked because the mission required Vietnamese or one of the other southeast asian pilots to fly it. Two were built, one crashed in practice, the second was supposedly successful. I’m no engineer, civil, project, or train, but I just don’t see how you can make a helicopter rotor system quiet. Even the Bin Laden raid was noisy. Some guy online at 2 am in Abbottabad heard them fly over. Whisper mode…no. Complex paint jobs to make them hard to see…absoultely. With that said, what marketed paint colors translate to the professional paint they use to hide these things in flight.
Thanks for the information
John
I started my build today. No pics yet, waiting until I actually paint something the exact color I wish to paint it. Primed every part. Used masking tape for the small parts. Tip: Don’t use the blue stuff. I know it’s wide and great for painting walls, but parts do not stick very well to it. The cream colored stuff we’ve used since the 40’s still allows you to pull parts off without unpainting them, but it holds parts in place even when the board is sitting upright not laying on the floor. One of my seats and the transmission cover fell off right after I painted them. I got angry. Cussed a bit. But kept my head and laid the board down, restuck the parts, gave them a quick spray, and all is well for now. Next step, TURNEM ALL OVER.
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Haven’t posted in a few days. Thought I’d bring you up to speed on my build. Still the UH-1D, the 1Y Marine Huey will be here Saturday. I’m spray painting as many of the parts as I can after having spray painted a primer coat over all of them. I used a sand dollar color of white. Makes seeing where you missed sooooo much easier. Case in point, the fuselage. I spray painted the fuselage camouflage green but I wanted the walk area on top to be black. After hours of painstaking masking with that orange yellow stuff that practically has to be beaten down to stick, and some painters cream colored masking tape, I painted the fuselage sections, going ahead and painting the nose green to cut down on masking up front. After it dried, I masked off the rest of the fuselage, unmasked the walk deck area, which was pearl white against that green, and painted the nose and walk area black. When I unmasked the green areas, tiny areas of white were still peeking through where I’d wanted black to go. The nose looked great, on both sections. As for the peeking through, I masked the nose and walk deck intentionally leaving the white areas showing, and gave the walk deck area a quick swipe of camo. No more white spots. Right now I’ve got all the pieces parts segregated into color schemes and have them taped to individual cardboard box pieces. For instance, the pilots will get a full coat of olive green, which paints there two piece flight suits, then I will use a brush to paint the helmets, faces, gloves and boots the colors they should be. Same goes for the cyclics, collectives, seats, pedals, ammo box, and rotor system. It’s easier for me to paint them all one color that takes care of the majority of the surfaces with spray, then individually paint the parts that will not be that color. I also plan to mask the fuselage again, thank goodness for paper towels, and paint the inside of the fuselage a lighter green. I’m going to do the same to the cabin and cockpit doors before I window them.
Maybe not the way you would do it, but, it works for me. I’ll send pictures after I am finished with primary painting.
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The Huey is my favorite aircraft. I flew in them a lot at Ft. Lewis, WA. (As a passenger, not part of the crew). Unfortunately, no model company makes a really accurate 1/32nd D/H model. Kitty Hawk made a good one, in 1/48th scale. My only complaint was the stabilizer dampeners. They were to high on the rotor Mast. I looked into building the Revell 1/32nd scale UH-1. (Until I saw the shape of the nose, and the rotor mast). I don’t think there is anyway to fix those two glaring issues. I did build the 1/35th scale Dragon UH-1, but had to do a lot of scratch building to make it better. (It didn’t even have a Jesus Nut on top of the main rotor). In the end, I threw in the towel on fixing anything else.
For the life of me, why can’t a company make an accurate UH-1. I know they would sell a lot of them. It’s 2026 for Pete’s sake!!!
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You are definitely speaking my language. With AI being what it is, I don’t mean the kill us all AI, I’m talking about the AI that can do research, look at a set of plans, and make a new valve for your heart. With AI these model companies, if things were better these days money wise, and we didn’t have all the taxes we have to suffer, shipping costs, and whatever else you have to throw in, companies could use AI to map out the perfect UH-1, F15, Abrams tank, the list goes on. Maybe they could find a way to use 3D printing to make the pieces and the sprues to hang them on.
I have no idea. Not my department. I am just a tool for advice, not an engineer, project, civil or train. I have been out of the Guard for so long I have intentionally forgotten what the Utility Helicopters looked like. I used to crew Huey’s and now I can’t remember what the cabin looked like. I hadn’t heard the term Jesus Nut in years. If that Nut comes loose, prepare to meet Jesus because the entire rotor system just exited stage left. Regardless of what 1D model you get, if it’s Revell, it’s the old 1967 mold. Different box cover, same chopper. I swear as I’m typing this Revell sold a combination kit 1D gunship and OH-6 Cayuse observation chopper in a kit titled “Hunter/Killer” Same 1D I’m building now. Kittyhawk makes what I thought was a much more detailed, better thought out model in 1/48 scale, but my eyes and fingers just can’t handle all those teeny tiny pieces. Plus, Kittyhawk’s version forces you to build every component. Case in point the skids. The seats are much more detailed and realistic, They have door guns like I used to use, Delta model M60’s, and the brass catchers. The nose is a separate part, not molded into the fuselage, and the fuselage is broken into cockpit/cabin, and Tail boom sections. The rotor system is piece after piece after piece. If they just could have made it in 1/32 scale.
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Just got my bottle of Evergreen Canopy glue. It’s basically Elmers in a different bottle with a tiny hole in the tip. Just thought you might want to know. Haven’t had the chance to use it yet. Still need to paint the inside of the doors before I install the windows. But first…get over this cold.
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Almost done with most of the painting. Tried to spray paint the tips of the main rotor blades yellow, still turned out a sticky mess. I’d suggest making this paint job and the tail rotor blades a decal job, but we are talking about a model that hasn’t been changed since I was 2. Kittyhawk did add a decal for these markings, but again, 1/48, eyesight. I tried to paint the inside of the cargo doors and cockpit doors, while masking the outside of the doors, but it still bled through slightly. I was going to paint the cargo floor black after painting it gray, but it looks fine, the masking took between the cockpit and cargo section, so I left it alone. I am not fond of the that orange graduation width masking tape. It sticks to my hands more than the part. Once stuck, it stays and is easier to remove, but wanting to break things after masking off an area or part, can’t be good.
When I’ve finished brush painting the small parts, I’ll take pictures.
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They did. It is the same Slick with their old Loach
Okay, you’ve got my attention with the Kitty Hawk comments.
I have both their UH-1Y Venom and AH-1Z Viper in my stash, and I’m planning to build both of them.
Are your frustrations specific to the Kitty Hawk Huey you’re building, or have you had similar experiences with either the Venom or Viper?
I’ll probably build them regardless, but I’d certainly like to know what I’m getting myself into. 
There’s a lot in this thread that I’ve found really interesting.
@Chopper_Chief, I especially enjoy hearing about your actual experience with the Huey. The fact that you crewed them and flew with Vietnam veterans gives you a perspective on this aircraft that most of us simply don’t have. The story about your friend receiving the DFC for going in under fire to extract the South Vietnamese Rangers is exactly the kind of history that makes an aircraft much more interesting to me than just the machine itself.
I also found the discussion about keeping the model relatively clean interesting. We tend to assume that military aircraft need to be heavily weathered to look realistic, but obviously there was a point when every one of them was a relatively new aircraft. Modeling one as it might have looked when it first arrived in Vietnam tells a story too.
And I’m learning things about the Huey that I never knew. I had certainly never heard the term “hell hole” before this thread, much less thought about what was going on underneath the aircraft around the cargo hook.
The other thing I find amazing is that after all these years, apparently nobody has really given us the definitive modern large-scale D/H kit. The Huey is like the P-51 Mustang of the helicopter world. It’s that iconic. You would think somebody would have nailed a really good modern kit of it by now.
This has turned into a much more interesting thread than just watching somebody build a Huey.
Small scale is just as bad I would say!
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I’m currently building the Revell classic UH-1D Gunship. I purchased a Kittyhawk UH-1D slick 1/48 scale, but being the observant idiot I am, I thought it too was a 1/32 scale. It was not. I built an Italyeri 1/48 scale Huey and nearly lost my mind over it. Parts were just too small for my dexterity and eyesight and lack of handling tools currently not on scene. Kittyhawk, just looking at the sprues, makes a very very detailed build model. Revell gives you a weak plastic warped set of skids you may or may not be able to bend back into place, Kittyhawk sends you a skid build using cross pieces and skid tubes. If you build them warped, they’ll be warped, build them straight, they’ll be straight.
Kittyhawk sends you a two section fuselage, cockpit/cabin, tail section. To me, that makes that part of the build much easier to manage. KIttyhawk sends you a door gun, not mounted cockpit fired guns. Kittyhawk has been reviewed by person’s I’ve had contact as being as scratch build oriented as revell and any other “tried to get the detail right, but the sprue making machine had other ideas”.
As for the 1Y Marine bird, still waiting for it to arrive. Heard it was great. Heard it was 1/35. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of a model I can see and handle. I’ll know hopefully today or tomorrow. My comments on model building are mostly, it’s 2026, stop sending out old tired broken wrong models that people have to fix to get the look they want, and modern tech the build process and send out models we just need to glue together, paint, and if we want to scratch in a part or look we want to see, it’s our choice, not necessary.
I only have the Huey, but I am also building the SH-2F Seasprite. That kit seems to have come together better than the Huey, but it is also not without its (glaring) faults–most grievously, the transmission housing is for the -G and it’s noticeably different. My complaints with the Huey are mainly around kit engineering–sprues attach to parts at the wost possible locations, on both sides of mating surfaces, for example. The nose glass did not fit well on mine, nor did the doors. The exhaust pipe could have been designed to glue to the engine (which I ended up doing), but instead there are tabs on either side that are supposed to fit into slots on either side of the fuselage. The tabs are far too large for the slots, so I cut them off completely and just glued it to the engine, but that created closure problems at the fuselage in that area. It’s nice that they provided PE for the various grilles, but the PE did not fit cleanly into these recesses and that’s very tricky cleanup work, at least for me. Such a shame that such a venerable workhorse does not have a 1/48 kit that does it justice.
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Thanks, Anthony. That answers my question.
It sounds like most of your frustration is specific to the Huey rather than necessarily being something I should expect from the Venom and Viper.
I’ve watched builds of both of mine on YouTube and neither builder seemed to have an especially difficult time with them, so hopefully I’ll be okay.
I appreciate you filling me in on what you’ve run into.
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