Westland WG-11A ASW Helicopter

[Thorvic]

Ok this is a build of the Westland equivalent to the Chinook which was in contention with the Sea King and Chinook as the British large Helicopter. I first saw it in project cancelled and realised than it was an enlarged BV-107 Sea Knight to Chinook size. Anyway I picked up the Fujimi Sea Knights probably 10 years ago and stock pilled chinooks to see how to merge them but never could, so I eventually passed to the Sea Knight to Martin H a few years ago  . So instead I picked up a pair of Hobby Boss CH-46s about 18 months ago, and they went into the stash as I was doing the HS-681 at the time and last year wasn't good for building. I did however have another discussion on the subject with TSRjoe when he stayed over en-route from SMW and showed him how a pair of CH-46s could be used as basis for the build.



Its the one on the back cover, the front cover is the Bristol 191 which was the original purpose of the type. (I started that one in 2015 but the Airfix kit just depressed us so the build stalled)

So here we are using a pair of Hobby boss CH-46s, an Italeri CH-47A Chinook and Strip Styrene, I decided to give it a try and see if my theory was right once you actually start cutting 






So still only 24 hrs into the build but I think the concept is sound and should work out OK. I have put the interior deck in but that's mostly for structural strength as the doors will be closed so I won't be adding the interior to the main cabin as it will be dark grey. Once the cabin windows have been done and the interior painted in will assemble the fuselage and fill in the holes for the rotor housings so they can then be revised and refitted, the tail gate needs to be widened and fitted before being faired in as this didn't open on the ASW version. Then it will be the sponson's, cockpit and onto the details if all goes well.

Hopefully this along with the ASW Puma will be alongside builds by others for the launch of 'Admiralty and the Helicopter' on the Project Cancelled stand at SMW 

[DogfighterZen]

Sounds interesting!

[KiwiZac]

Seconded, very interesting. And it really does look very, very Vertol. One keen watcher here.

[sandiego89]

Love the ambition!  Keep it up.  Love big helo's. 

[Captain Canada]

Great work so far, and defo an interesting concept ! Took me a minute to figure out how you needed two kits....then once I spotted it 

[Thorvic]

Ok I have revised the window layout and put a door on the port side of the cabin and the fuselage is now together. I have plated over the holes for the front and rear rotor housings and glued back in place the front rotor mount. I have put and insert in the two part rear doors and fixed that in place. I have now just added some additional plastic strip to the centreline of the rear ramp as the ASW version had the ramp replaces by a fairing so I therefore needed to bulk out the flat rear doors to a more rounded affair to match the drawings. This has now just had its milliput applied so will be curing for the next 24 hrs  .

Stops the build for now but it gets the undersides done, as once that's cured and sanded down I can do the rounded fairing to the front rotor head as this has a Dominie style skull cap over the cockpit and blending in the front rotor housing.

I have opted to use the Chinook A rear rotor housing as this best matches the drawings as the Sea Knight has its engines embedded into this housing, but I won't fit this till I have finished work on the front housing so it wont get dislodged or damaged. Once this is in place I can then sort out the twin engine housings abreast the rear rotor and blend those in.

After those are done it should be safe to do the wheel sponsons and then can get to work on cleaning it up, renewing panel lines and then adding the details.

Pretty sure this concept will work just needs the time and effort to get it right. Now glad I didn't try to do an interior, you can't see much if it was there is more structural work than originally envisaged which would have covered it in dust and detritus.

[Captain Canada]

Does it ever sound like a lot of work !

For sure foregoing the interior is the way to go. From a structural standpoint and as a sanity get it finished measure. Once you've got this one finished, you can always revisit a second example that's got more interior detail.

[loupgarou]

Very interesting build. Quite a big (and fat  ) chopper. Will follow the developments, you're working very cleanly, it's inspirational.

[Thorvic]

Photos showing the raw milliput rear that's currently curing that will build up the rear profile over the stern ramp.
You can see the fwd rotor head in situ, this will be built up with plastic and milliput to create the skullcap over the cockpit around the rotor head, however I won't do this till the lower rear has been shaped and cleaned up.

In the meantime I think I may clear a few more older and less completed hanger queens whilst letting things cure 

[Captain Canada]

Funny how big it's looking already !

[Thorvic]

The finished (ish) WG-11 Westland Westonian HAS1. 824 sqdn 1971 based on HMS Ark Royal.

Managed to complete it just in time for Glasgow show (well almost complete as I didn't add the aerials, but that will be done this week hopefully)

Its based on a Hobbyboss CH-46D kit, using a second kit to create the fuselage plug to extended the length and Strip Styrene to widen the fuselage, The front rotor housing is built up to a skull cap style using plastic card and Milliput, whilst the after rotor housing was replaced by a taller cone from a chinook and reshaped. The forward sponson's came from an Airfix Puma and the after ones were substantially built up from the kit ones plus adapted ones from a Lindberg jolly green giant and lots of plastic card and putty. The engines are built up from plastic card and tube together with a lot of Milliput. Thus quite a bit of PSR was required. The Canopy is from both CH-46 kits cut to off centre to generate the extra width required. The Rotor blades are revised Chinook blades as the CH-46 blade chord was way too narrow to use.

Painted in Hataka RAF Blue Grey and decaled with Model Alliance Ark Royal set and numbers from the modeldecal/xtradecal white RAF codes sets.

Will try and extract the in-progress shots from my mobile phone to refresh this thread when I gat a chance, along with some photos of the finished article (hopefully alongside some similar types to illustrate the size and shape.

An involved build, but one I enjoyed  as it was one I have wanted to do since seeing the 'British Chinook' in Project Cancelled way back in the 80s. Tried various ideas against the drawings over the years but finally had the breakthrough last November and sounded it out with TSRJoe  which prompted the procurement of donor kits and the build this year.

[rickshaw]

Nice!   

[Dizzyfugu]

Sweet, and subtle, too. 

[NARSES2]

Does look good 

[PR19_Kit]

That looks really good, and SO Chinook like.

Was it a case of 'great minds think alike' or was there some Boeing-Vertol influence there?