Found out that my father-in-law was a medic in Nam. would like to do a chopper for him. who makes a quality kit of this version,or do I need to to a conversion?
Something like this:
More pics here.here,here,here. You can follow the build and
I built this for a customer last year. It represents a UH-1H MedEvac from the 57th Medical Detachment in Vietnam, “The Original Dustoffs”. It was made from a heavily modified 1/35 Panda UH-1D, actually closer to an H model, sort of.
Unfortunately, there is no dedicated model of a Vietnam UH-1D/H Dustoff Huey. Esci did have a UH-1V MedEvac Huey in 1/48, but it was an '80s model. It is long out of production as well. The only options out there are to convert one from an existing UH-1D or H model.
Here are a couple options:
Italeri has a UH-1H in Italian colors in 1/48 and a US Army version in 1/72:
Revell of Germany has a German 1/72 model as well. It is a later model ('80s) UH-1H though and would need to be backdated.
Hasegawa also has one listed as an UH-1H model in 1/72, but the pic shows both D and H model features, not really sure what it is.
You can get a set of US Army in Vietnam UH-1D/H decals in 4 of the most popular scales (1/32, 1/35, 1/48, & 1/72) from Fireball Modelworks. It doesn’t contain any red crosses or MedEvac specific decals, but most of the common decals could be used. For crosses, Archer makes a set of WWII ambulance decals in both 1/35 and 1/48, they would probably work. You could also print you own crosses (as I did) using computer decal paper.
Good luck.
Thanks Arty, at least I have a direction now
Revell do a UH-1 German SAR version in 1/72 which includes stretchers, howver it is not a particularly good model with regards to fit and chunkyness of the mould. I’m not sure what sort of quality their 1/48 version is, whether it is a new tooling or just a scaled up version of the smaller kit. If you look in the gallery in www.aircraftresourcecenter.com there are a few built up which look prety good. The italeri or ESCI kits are much better in both 1/72 and 1/48 and you can always get hold of the Revell Huey in 1/32 which is an excellent kit. I’m not sure if anyone makes stretchers in 1/35, so you might have to scratch build those. I know the ESCI kit has a winch with it but it goes on the top of the aircraft and I’m not sure if it was used in this way in Vietnam.
Good luck,
Rich