A question about USMC H-34 Sea Horse

The H-34 was used to retrieve the Mercury capsules so the caption on your pic is probably accurate.

I have seen the same nose design on others so I think the only difference would be the number. I believe the number should match the number on the side of the fuselage.

Thank's Aaronw and Ziggyfoos .

Aaronw , It does seem that the Sikorsky H-34 Helicopter may be a favourite of yours ???

Anyway I kind of like the yellow paint scheme around the nose cone , It breaks up the overall marine green finish and it shouldn't be to difficult to scrounge around for the aircraft [ 44 ] numbers .

Thank's again guy's , BTW , I did a bit of a search on google and yahoo for images of the USMC H-34 Seahorse but as yet haven't seen any with the yellow nose cone paint finish . Does anyone know of any sites that have a few more pic's ???

                                    Kind regards John

Yes, I do have a thing for the H-34, well really many of the early piston powered helicopters H-19, H-21, CH-37 etc. Just something about the awkward daredevil look they had, kind of Evel Keneval meets Waldo the dork.

I've got an H-19, H-34 and HUP-1 I'm close to finishing. I have another H-19, and H-34 waiting to go as well as an H-21 I've just got started.

I can't point you to any specific links but I know I've seen a similar pic to the one you posted but from more of a head on angle. You might try adding in some search words including Mercury, NASA, capsule recovery and the Mercury Astronauts Glenn, Shepard, Carpenter, Grissom, Cooper, Schirra, and Slayton to the more obvious H-34, Seahorse etc.

There is a NASA website with a bunch of photos including many of the capsule recovery operations but I haven't found its search feature very useful, besides after Mercury the Sea King was used instead of the H-34.

Here are a couple for you

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4001/images/fig41.jpg

http://www.sae.org/aeromag/features/going_to_moon/images/01.jpg

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2005/Images/Page_058_Image_0001.jpg

As Gino said, those kits that do exist are VERY hard to come by and bring big bucks when they do sell.  It is a pretty good kit overall and with some resin it really looks great.  The UH-34D boxing comes with the yellow-nosed markings that John is looking to do. 

I've got two that I'm hoping to start soon.  Just waiting on resin cockpits and interiors for them before I get started. 

From what I hear, the molds were damaged, but not lost. Anyone know any more on this?

Jon

John,

The yellow nose was used on squadrons assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 26 (MAG-26) "Flying Diamonds" during the late fifties and early sixties.  I've got a crusiebook with some good pictures but have scanned them yet. 

 Jon,

I'm spreading the rumor that the Revell H-34 molds got damaged when the train carrying them from Revell USA to Revell Germany sunk.  They aren't "lost" per say but it would be cost prohibitive to raise the train as it was halfway across the Atlantic when it sunk.

Cobrahistorian wrote:

Just waiting on resin cockpits and interiors for them before I get started.  Jon

I have one in 1/48 scale in the box also and was looking for after market parts. Where did you find your resin parts?

WOW , Thank's for sharing those great pic's Supercobra , They will help a lot with the masking on the nose cone of the H-34 .

Really cool pic's

                                       Kind regards John

BTW , One of the pic's seems to show an early UH-34D with the bent gear leg

Were these versions also used to recover Mercury capsule's , am I right in saying that the pic's I've seen so far show the H-34 with the V style landing gear being used in the recovery operations ???

                               Thank's again for the pic's ...            John

Not sure John.  I was pulling pics that had the flying diamond but hadn't necessarily limited it to Mercury recover aircraft.  Although it does look like the bent leg bird is the same squadron (HMR-262) I don't know if it was thw same timeframe or if it participated.  I hadn't looked that closely at the recovery aircraft pictures to see if any were bent leg.  If I get time tonight I'll go look at my other pictures.   

The picture you quoted was scanned out of a cruisebook.  IIRC it was before Project Mercury timeframe.