A question about Medevac Huey's in Vietnam ?

Steps 9 & 10 are for a standard troop transport huey.

Steps 11 12 13 are for the medavac version.  The two side facing seats do not get installed with the stretchers.  Nor do the bench seats.  For the medevac, just use the bottom three steps.  

Hi Rob , thank's for the help ; I probably didn't phrase my question very well . I did realise that Revell give me the option of troop seats or stretchers ; It's just the position of the stretchers in the instructions . A few pic's I've seen so far on the internet seem to show only two or three stretchers installed . So I'm not sure which way the stretchers should go , [three across or three down each side of the cabin ] ???

                                                   Kind regards John

For a Vietnam (or later) UH-1H or V MedEvac bird, the stretchers should go 3 across the cabin.  The two crew chief seats should face the rear as well, directly behind the pilots seats.  The 6 stretcher setup is for an air ambulance used to transport stable patients between medical centers and such, not battlefield MedEvac. 

You can check out a 1/35 UH-1H MedEac that I built for a customer here.

Good luck.

WOW thanks Gino for the link on your Medevac Huey ; That's exactly what I was thinking of building . I added the link to "My Favourites" on the computer .

                                            Thank's again Gino

                                          Kind regards John.

P.S. Does UH-1V stand for Medevac Huey ?

P.S. Does UH-1V stand for Medevac Huey ?

Yes, the dedicated MedEvac version with the interior mods is designated as the V model.

If you haven't seen them yet, Fireball Modelworks has a great set of MedEvac decals.

Good luck.

I came across this pic on the net ,

So am I to understand that all the MedEvac Huey's in Vietnam had rescue hoists fitted . If so I may have to try and scratch build one ?

I did like those Fireball Modelworks MedEvac decals ,

I was also wondering if the MedEvac Vietnam Huey's had the the red cross on the nose and cabin doors or would that have made the Huey too visiable to the enemy ?

                                                Kind regards John .

Helo 53 wrote:

I came across this pic on the net , So am I to understand that all the MedEvac Huey's in Vietnam had rescue hoists fitted . If so I may have to try and scratch build one ? I did like those Fireball Modelworks MedEvac decals , I was also wondering if the MedEvac Vietnam Huey's had the the red cross on the nose and cabin doors or would that have made the Huey too visiable to the enemy ?                                                 Kind regards John .

Not all MedEvac's had hoists installed, especially early in the war. Also Red Cross markings would be on the nose also, sometimes these were toned down by not painting the white square and just carrying the cross in red

John, is your Medivac Huey going to be a US or Australian aircraft? I ask this as there may be differences between them.

Hi Dave ; The two Bushranger Gunships I'm thinking of building are like the first two pic's I posted above . I've sent away to Hawkeye Models in Canberra for some decals to match the first pic , the second pic shows white RAAF markings , so I was thinking of using the decals Italeri provide in their UH-1B Huey kit and use them on the UH-1D instead .

I also bought some Evergreen 1mm and 1.2mm round plastic to try and make up some of those rocket tubes . I have two pairs of miniguns to mount near the front cockpit for each gunship , there's a couple of door gunners to use as well . I'm still trying to figure out how to make the twin M60D machine guns , I have a few spare guns in my stash but not M60D's , so I'll have to try and scratch build some using parts of the other guns .

For the MedEvac version I was just going to use some spare U.S. Army decals ; As yet I haven't come across any pic's of an Australian MedEvac huey . The three Huey's would probably look better if they all had RAAF markings . Do you know of any internet sites that may pic's of an Aussie MedEvac UH-1D .

I also noticed in the pic's I'm using as my main source of reference is the differrent type of antenna arrangement on the RAAF Huey's , they dont appear to have the small VHF antenna's fitted on each side of the rear tailboom .

So that's it so far , I sure do appreciate any assistance you can give me regarding my three Huey builds , I dont have any Aussie Aircraft in my display cabinets , everything is pretty much "USA all the way" , with a few Israeli IDF builds . Some Vietnam Huey's with Australian markings will go well with my other Helo's ;

Plus you just gotta love all that FIRE POWER hanging off the Aussie Huey's

                                              Kind regards John

I forgot to mention that one of the Italeri UH-1D Huey's is an ex USAF bird . That's why it still has the ADC gray paint finish . The local hobby stores are currently out of stock of the Italeri UH-1D's , so I decided to redo one of my earlier builds . Instead of stripping back the whole Huey , I carefuuly removed the landing gear skids and cut open the fuselage from the nose section so I could pull out the cabin floor and roof section . Italeri incorrectly tell you to paint the roof and rear wall interior green , I wanted to fix this error so I re-airbrushed the interior dark gull gray FS.36231 . I also made some seat armour out of some black cardboard to fit around the cockpit seats . Also a lot of pic's I've seen show those small cabin doors on both sides of the fuselage removed , so I was thinking of doing the same .

                                                 John

John,

  Sorry, I haven't been here in a while. here's some pics of VN Medivacs.  I am pretty sure that all are in country birds.  I have pictures of others in color but they do not appear to be in country.  You'll notice the first pic has a M60 mounted.  That isn't standard, but wasn't unheard of in Vietnam where the bad guys didn't much care about the Geneva Convention.  I hope these help. 

Ray

[img]http://[img]http://http://

[img]http://" border="0" />[/img][img]http://[img]http://[img]http://" border="0" />[/img][/img][/img]

The UH-1V was an upgrade of the UH-1H that added a radar altimeter, improved particle separator and new main rotor blades (I believe there was an engine upgrade too).  It was not a dedicated Medevac version and it was introduced well after Vietnam. Current ones also have GPS installed. The sensor is mounted on the back side of the upper WSPS blade over the windscreen.

Jon 

              Hi Ray ;

Thanks for sharing the pic's , they will certainly help a lot .

I thought you might have gone on holiday's over the christmas/new year season . I'm lucky enough to have 4 weeks annual leave over January , so I'm hoping to complete a lot of builds I've started , [half are finished , just waiting to be decaled] . I think I'll go ahead with removing those small side cabin doors , Italeri molded them as part of the fuselage , unlike their UH-1N version which are supplied seperatly . With the small doors off it will be easier to see the two seats behind the pilots on the MedEvac version . Also on the gunship Huey's , am I correct in thinking that behind the pilots seats is where the ammo box would be for the forward miniguns .

When I was searching around FSM pages , a lot of pic's you and others previously posted show a hole cut through the side doors for the ammunition belts to fed through . Although I have looked at so many Huey pic's lately , I dont want start confussing myself

I was thinking of using some small rubber bands cut to length and painted silver to represent the ammo belts . I also have what look to be some M60C machine guns , there were four that came with the Revell UH-1D kit and I had four already in my stash . So I was thinking about trying to convert those to use . Am I also right in thinking about making stocks for the rear of the guns and adding some type of pistol grips , being a twin machine gun set-up , I'm really not quite sure how they actually look .

Also I dont think I'll build a rescue hoist on this version , the guns and rocket tubes will be enough work for me .

Hopfully by tonight I should have the fuselage halves glued together on all three and I can start on the guns and rocket tubes .

Thanks again for the help everyone , I sure to appreciate it . Lots more comments and suggestions are always welcomed .

                                                Kind regards John

I came across this pic on the net . I guess my guns will have to look the same , which will probably be the hardest part of the whole Huey builds .

                                          John

These are the guns I was thinking of trying to use . Looks like a bit of work to convert them ?

                                                John.

John, I'm afraid calling those pieces of plastic "guns" is kinda stretching it.  They are the original M60C's from the Hasegawa kit, repopped by Revell and ACE and probably others over the years.  You can get decent M-60A's from teh Italeri OH-13 kit.  But I still added several PE parts to mine to make em look the part. here's the ones I did for my dad's gunship.  Good luck.

   Ray

[img]http://" border="0" />[/img]

                Ray

I do have some of those OH-13 guns , two were from an earlier build , two are from a OH-13 kit in my stash . Although I haven't seen the Italeri OH 13 kit for quite a while in the hobby stores . As you have said the guns from the OH-13 are much better looking , I just thought the barrells might be a little short in length ???

                                                John

John,

  That's quite a weapons stash you got there!  As for the size of the 60's, to be quite honest, I'm pretty sure they are a little overscale, but no those barrels are just fine. you can see the barrel projects well beyond the gas cylinder, just like the real thing.  Some special forces units and OH-6 gunners used short M60's but the barrel and gas cylinder are the same length on those.  Here's you a few pics.

     Ray

[img]http://[img]http://

I think part of your problem is that the barrels have the forearms removed.  It makes them look longer than they are. Kinda like this:

[img]http://

the only way I know for you to get this is to take the barrels off a C or D and graft them to the  A trigger and stock.   Anyway, I hope this helps.

    Ray
 

I will have a look through my ref material for any pics I can find. The best site you can go to is the site I run, www.aussiemodeller.com - there is a discussion board that is frequented by some very knowledgeable folk that will certainly be able to help you. If you go back through the forum you will even find info on the weapon set up on the Bushrangers as there was a big discussion about them a few months ago.

 Edit - on reflection and looking through my refs I don't think that there would have been any dedicated medivac Huey's in the Aust contingent. There were only two Australian SQN's of Huey's in Vietnam, one RAAF (9SQN) and the RAN flight (navy). At most they would have had ten aircraft each and would have been too busy doing insertion/extraction with some dedicated Bushrangers to give fire support. I 'think' that all dedicated aeromedical support for the Australian forces was done by the USA. The medical extraction by the Aust contingent would have been to just put the injured on the cargo floor and get them out that way rather than 'waste' an airframe on permanent medical setup with red crosses. But I shall keep looking for any refs I can on it.

Good eye Mel. I thought that picture was funny with the hoist on the left side. I flew medevac in San Antonio and did Hoist training and was wondering why that image had it on the left.

Charlie

True Mel and Charlie the hoist is USUALLY mounted on the right, but the fire supression bird I posted has it one the left I assume because the supression system is on the right.  Good eyes, by the way, Mel.

    Ray

I've been searching around the net and found this pic of what I think might be an ammunition canister . It was from a prime portal web site that had some very nice walkaround pic's of an RAAF Bushranger Huey , finished in the 1980's color scheme of Tan and Green . There were also some great pic's of the twin machine gun set up . I didn't see any pic's of inside the cabin so I'm not sure what type of ammo box would have been used during the vietnam war . The one's I have to use are the standard box type that usually fits under the cabin seat . I was about to cut open the small cabin side door , when I decided to check the net again to see if I should just cut a slot in the door instead . At the moment I can't decide which to do  

                                                          John

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/azrael_raven/uh-1d_huey_gunship/index.php?Page=1

Here's the link to the web site .                  John

That is a definite wierd photo. I do not believe it to be a ammo cannister. It definitely is two ammo cans welded together. Reminds me of possibly a gun can to clear your weapon in. Back in the seventies you saw similar cans around certain building on a military base and you clear your weapon in them. You were suppose to empty your gun first and make sure it was empty by squeezing the trigger with the barrel pointed into the can after it was clear. One dumb 2nd LT I was with going to finance to help pickup the payroll thought he was to fire his gun into the barrel to empty it. I was so embarrased when I saw him empty his 45 into the barrel and boy did it cause a up roar at Finance. Boy did he catch hell when we got back to the company. He never did live that down.

Anyway, I don't know what that photo is but if it held two rolls of ammo where would the belt feed be at and how would a belt switch from one side to another. Interesting image.

Charlie

Here are some links from the Aussiemodller forum covering the Bushranger in SVN:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/219149/thread/1168352395/Bushranger+Huey+pics+%2C+anyone-

http://www.network54.com/Forum/219149/thread/1150718183/UH-1H+Fwd+weapons+mounts-

http://www.network54.com/Forum/219149/thread/1088633275/RAAF+%26quot%3BBushranger%26quot%3B

If they don't work then just do a search on the forum for bushranger. HTH

Charlie and John,

  Go here and it will answer most of your questions, including the wierd ammo can.  And YES, it is an ammo can!  This was written by one of the guys who armed the first Bushrangers so it's great intel.

   Ray
 

http://www.hotkey.net.au/~marshalle/raaf/bushranger.htm 

I stand corrected, but I wonder how a double wide ammo can pulls ammo from both sides. I would think the ammo is just folded on top of itself in two columns. I wonder how the connection between the two sides is accomplished.

Thanks

Charlie