Belvedere CSAR Mk.3

[Weaver]

Might enter this if I get all it's "issues" resolved in time:

Airfix 1/72nd Belvedere modified to an improved Mk.3 version and used for CSAR support of British forces in Vietnam. Engines moved to external pods (but still one forward, one aft), streamlined u/c, new nose, door/window guns. To eventually be mounted as a pair with a Skyraideresque modified Gannet flying escort.

Unresolved issues about what nose to use, mainly because the Airfix one is so bloody awful. I also have it in mind to put some detail inside it, and I won't compromise this to meet the GB date.

[Captain Canada]

GB dates always slip....so on yer bike !

[ChernayaAkula]

Sounds like a cool project! Especially with the Sandy Gannet! 

[PR19_Kit]

Now there's a much overlooked aircraft! Has anyone ever Whiffed a Belvedere before?

I don't envy you trying to sort that nose out, it has to be the WORST canopy/nose that Airfix ever made. Who in their right mind decided to put a join line slap down the centre? Maintrack did a rather excellent upgrade kit for the Belv umpteen years ago that goes a long way to solve that problem with a nice vacformed canopy, but I bet it's extinct by now

If you're having the engines mounted externally will one be on one side and the other on the opposite side? It wouldn't balance otherwise....... (I'm just trying to imagine how this would look............WEIRD!)

The Gannetraider sounds a gem too. Now that we all have buckets of ancient unbuilt Frog kits (because anyone wanting to make an RW Gannnet will use the new Revell one...) there's bags of scope to Whiff them.

[nev]

lol, this should be interesting!  I'm hard pushed to think of a chopper less suited for CSAR than the Belvedere - typically British solution then!

[Weaver]

Thanks folks - sorry for the slow reply: not getting much chance to check all the boards at the moment.

Kit: I was kinda hoping to fit a completely different nose, but the Belvedere's wierd egg-shaped cross section makes it problematical, since front ends of logically designed (i.e. square) helicopters don't fit... Least worst option so far is a Gazelle, but it's much lower so it would need a lot of gubbins underneath to make it look right. On the upside, that gubbins could include a gun turret.....

Engine-wise, yep - forward pod on the left (because the door's on the right), rear pod on the right (so it's not breathing the forward engine's exhaust)  That's problematic too, because the forward rotor "mast" isn't very tall. Undercarriage will be a twin nosewheel retracting where the forward intake used to be, and Sea King pods aft.

Just to make it fun, the fuselage halves are warped too, so it's still unlikely that this will even get started in time for the GB. The "Scoutised Huey" is a far more likely prospect.

[nev]

Thanks folks - sorry for the slow reply: not getting much chance to check all the boards at the moment.

Kit: I was kinda hoping to fit a completely different nose, but the Belvedere's wierd egg-shaped cross section makes it problematical, since front ends of logically designed (i.e. square) helicopters don't fit...

Why not let the mountain come to Mohammed by using something egg shaped as a starting point - I'm thinking something like a Kinder Egg here, but I'm sure there are other egg-shaped props about.