Playing around with a a bunch of copters... (no longer just an NH90)

[SebastianP]

So I came home today with a Revell NH90 NFH kit and discovered when I opened the box that while the new parts sprue is full of fugly "early 90's Italeri" parts and the paint mix instructions are awful, the kit still contains all the TTH bits and is molded in gray rather than hard-to-work-with green, so I'm taking this as license to WHIF.

In addition to the kit itself, I also have a complete set of weapons from the Revell Tiger, and a *bunch* of unused decal sheets from projects that never got to that stage:
1 MH-47E (Italeri)
1 Merlin HM.1 (Revell)
1 Merlin HC.3 (Revell)
1 Tiger UHT/HAP (Revell)
1 EC-135 ADAC/REGA (Revell)
1 Typhoon F.2 (Revell)
1 F-22A Raptor (Revell)
1 F-16CJ (Revell)

I also have various leftover bits and pieces from a bunch of mostly modern German 1/72 armor kits.

So, while I start on the interior for a bit, could you guys come up with some ideas for a paint scheme for me (an easy one, preferably - I'll be brush painting it). It should be fairly easy to build as a US Army, US Navy, RAF or RN machine, and I could probably swing USAF or USMC in a pinch. If I build a land-based one, it will definitely be a CSAR version, since I have the hardpoints for that and I've wanted to build one forever...

[Captain Canada]

two tone grays like the SOA choppers. Real easy !

[Cobra]

how about Doing the NH90 as an RAF Rescue Helo or as an RN ASR Bird in Chrome Yellow? those Work for You? Dan

[SebastianP]

I'm going with an ASW version after all, have already drilled the holes in the floor plate for the dipping sonar and consoles...

Right now I'm looking at either a Cayman HM.1 of the Royal Navy, or an SH-73B Cayman of the US Navy. I could, with a little squinting (either I get the wrong font or the wrong color text) do a Marineflieger NFH, or a simple RAN version (combining the Roos from the Hawk100 sheet I found with some of the US Navy decals). Most of the other national insignia I've found would require some other decals I don't have (identifying it as a naval unit, most often), or I only have way too large versions (JMSDF...)

Then there's the completely off-the-wall notion of using the UN Spacy decals from a VF-0 kit I no longer have...

BTW, can anyone else spot the anomaly in this pic?

[Captain Canada]

She looks gorgeous as a naval bird...and right at home on modern ships

Can't see anything wrong with the pic tho

[SebastianP]

She does, doesn't she?

I've gotten the major parts of the interior painted, and the big decal for the floor in place now. I need to (re)paint the sonar and consoles, and build the back seats, then I'm pretty much satisfied with the interior. For this build at least. Pictures then.

What caught my eye about that photo was the upswept exhausts - I hadn't seen those on an ASW version before. It appears they may have been installed for a couple of days, during demonstration flights in Australia while they were trying to convince the Aussies to buy the naval version. Right now I'm having this strange idea of adding the wire strike protection system and the upturned exhausts - mission kit for specops pickup, or something. Don't have a machine gun to go with it, sadly.

I need to start rebuilding my helicopter collection again - there are so many fun ones to build...

[Captain Canada]

I didn't know the diference between the wxhausts...but the upturned ones look better if you ask me ! I have this kit in the stash, was going to make it RCN. We are in the process of acquiring the CH-146 Cyclone, which is a Sikorsky S-92, that no other navy is using, so we are footing the bill to kit out and test a fleet of 12. Itès our own F-35 !


A 72nd scale door gun should be easy to fab up. Take some bits of landing gear, flap actuators and the like, glue a small box on the side for the ammo can, paint it green and the gun gunmetal, and voila !

[SebastianP]

To prove that there actually is a kit involved this time (I've been pretty bad at providing evidence in the past), a quick pic of what I've done so far:



The consoles and dipping sonar aren't glued in place, but the seats are - mainly to get the parts to line up. Lots more painting needed, but at least I have yet to botch anything. That's always a big plus. (Murphy, go away.)

Now, it's time for a break. Not feeling like painting right now, and I don't really have much more I can do until that's done.

[Captain Canada]

Looking good ! Nice to see all the gizmos put together...I usually paint the interiors dark and close the door 

[SebastianP]

Usually I end up doing something similar - or trashing the kit. Wanted to see if I could avoid that this time...

I went down to my basement to check if there was anything in the stack of "main body missing, detail pieces still on sprue" kits that could be helpful. I found some of this, some of that, and some of what in bloody blazes is this thing?

Among my loot there were two miniguns (from an MH-47E kit) complete with the bracket that goes across the bottom of the window; one M2HB from an M1A2 tank that looks like it might fit that same mount bracket; at least one, possibly three MG3 machine guns from various German Army kits; a complete Leopard 2A5 in 1/72; all the armament from a Mangusta; and two platoons of vinyl army men (one British and one German, both modern). And four Mk46 torpedoes from a couple of P-3C Orion kits.

I smell a desert camo Leo 2A5 with a minigun on top coming up...

[SebastianP]

I've been assembling some weapons tonight, figured I'd make sure all the usable weapons from all my kit sprues were assembled and stored some place other than their box, so I don't chuck something useful when I clean out the old crap. It turns out there was quite a bit of ordnance in my stash - I've built six rocket pods and four missile launcher pods tonight, and cleaned up another eight twin AAM launchers...

For 1/72 helicopters, I've found the following, all told:

4 x Trigat-ER quad launchers
4 x HOT quad launchers
2 x TOW quad launchers (modern)
6 x 19-tube 70 mm rocket pods (two of them are longer than the others)
4 x 22-tube 70 mm rocket pods
4 x MISTRAL twin launchers
2 x Stinger twin launchers

There might be two more twin Stinger launchers someplace, the sprue section they (and only they) should be on is missing.

There's also four miniguns, an M2HB, and a 20 mm chin turret...

[Captain Canada]

Sounds like you're going to have to build some more choppers eh !?

[SebastianP]

That, or figure out a cool way to attach them to armored vehicles or WW2 props... how about upgrading the "bazookas" on a P-47 to a brace of modern 70 mm rockets?

Anyway, apparently all of the best kits of the stuff I like to build are crammed full of extra weapons nowadays, the weapons just keep piling up. I have 25 AMRAAMs, 20 Sidewinders, 8 Meteors, 4 MICAs, 4 IRIS-T, 4 ASRAAM, and two Magic in my air-to-air missile box; six HARMs, 2 Harpoons, 2 SLAM-ER, 4 Taurus, 4 Stormshadow, 2 APACHE, and 15 ALCMs in my air-to-surface missile box; and two penetrator JDAMs, 4 1000 lb JDAMs, 2 GBU-10, 4 GBU-16, 8 Rockeyes and 2 Mk83s in the bombs box. And then there's the drop tank box.

And those are just the relatively recent ones. I've quit the hobby twice before and tossed out everything - every time I consider what was in my spares boxes the last time I get more than a little pissed at myself for not thinking harder about it, as I had *seven* of the Hasegawa weapons sets (three of the set with the JDAM and JSOW in it, two of the one with the SLAM and the Penguin, and one each of the modern LGBs and unguided bombs sets) and one of the old Italeri NATO weapons set (which had some rather hard to find stuff like Sea Skua, Exocet and Kormoran anti-ship missiles, and B61 nuclear bombs), on top of all the kit leftovers. ARRGH! 

[Captain Canada]

What kits are the JDAMs in ? Ya, know the feeling of tossing stuff away and regretting it.....

[SebastianP]

Revell's 1/72 F-22 is the source of the 1000 lb JDAMs, there's two in each kit (and six AIM-120C, 2 AIM-9M and 2 AIM-9X...). The 2000 lb penetrator JDAMs are in Revell's F/A-18E kit, don't know if their F (if there is one) has them too. (Both the 1/72 and 1/48 kits have a pair of them - and a pair of Mk83s, two AIM-9X, two AIM-9M, and two AIM-120C, IIRC. Don't remember off hand what else comes in those kits).

All of the above are *very* nice, the only irritant with these kits is that the F-22 doesn't have a panel line for the nosecone on the bottom half, which makes it a pain in the donkey to mask and paint. (not that painting an F-22 is a walk in the park under any circumstances...)

While I'm waiting for the paint to dry, I've been doing more archaeology in my kit stash. Piece by piece, I have unearthed one entire MH-47E (Italeri 1/72), and 99% of an EC-135 (Revell 1/72). The only part I'm missing on the Eurocopter is the port vertical finlet thing that goes on end of the horizontal stabilizer, which has broken off from the assembled tail section (the only bit I'd built, was going to see if it fit on the EC-145...)

I also discovered the rest of one of my Tigers - the fuselage was hiding in the dark behind my half-built fast jets. I was originally going to build it as a French HAP Tigre, so it has the gun nose, but since it's only just been closed up (no wings, no roof, no landing gear, no paint...) I could turn it into pretty much anything *except* a vanilla UHT. (I could probably do that anyway, if I take the nose off of the kit, but I think I'll skip that. Too much risk of breaking something.)

Edit: Hmm. Camo scheme on the EC-135, and the OSIRIS mast mounted sight from the Tiger on top? Also, the combination of an OSIRIS sight and a gun has yet to be seen in real life, but it should be possible... The big question is whether to attempt to arm the little beastie. I must construct additional Eurocopters!