In-flight Huey

How about a very small helo?! I've seen several pics in FSM of prop blurs painted on plastic sheet I think. Haven't tried it myself, but it's probably the way to go.

Are you into Photoshop at all? You could start with a scan or pic of a single rotor, hit it with a blur tool & then print it out on an overhead transparency or something similar...

I'd try to use the PE prop-blur on the tail rotor and leave the main as is...  Otherwise, it'd be a plastic disc for the main rotor with some lquid cement "wisps" and use transparent colors to help with the blur and tips...

I agree with Hans.  Most photos of helos in flight show the main rotor blad stoped and pretty clear.  The tail rotor is usually a blur though.

A camera may capture the main rotor "intact" and the TR blurred but the human eye doesn't.  So it depends on if you are trying to make it look like a picture of a helo inflight or if you are trying to make it look like a helo inflight.  

There are a few builds on here where people have motorized the MR and TR to get the in flight look.

If you're building a diorama of a troop insertion or extraction, with the helicopter on the ground, it'd probably work best with the main rotor still and the tail rotor blured...  That's what people are used to seeing in photos and their mind will "fill in the blanks" regarding what's supposed to be moving and what isn't...   

Dioramas with "action" taking place are best when they depict a "snap-shot" of a moment in time and you shouldn't mix animation with stills. The key is to put figures and vehicles in an "off-balance" position, one that the viewer knows would result in a guy falling down if he tried to strike the same pose standing still...

Real smoke, muzzle flashes, "flames", flickering lights, and spinning props & rotors, although kinda "cool" and fun to do,  look silly with the main subject sitting still and figures frozen in place...

I did build a UH-1D with a powered main rotor and plastic disc TR,  and it was a royal PITA... I never did get the rotor centered EXACTLY (the blades weren''t balanced, nor was the rotor shaft centered, and there was a subsequent vibration that made it bob & weave all over on its stand, like the pilot was having a seizure or something... Even after I removed it from its stand ( I had it posed about two inches off the deck with the troops un-azzing it) and stapled the skids down to the ground material, the thing still bounced around & up & down (albeit not as bad, but still too much to run the motor for longer than it took to convince a viewer that I'd put a motor in it.)...

 I never could run it fast enough to get it to look like it was moving in a photo either... Woulda shook it apart, lol...

In this month's FSM, there's an article in which the modeler "blurred" a kit prop for a Mustang, and it looked pretty convincing in the photo, but I think a helicopter main rotor would be just too big for that technique to look "right"...

Dioramas with "action" taking place are best when they depict a "snap-shot" of a moment in time and you shouldn't mix animation with stills. The key is to put figures and vehicles in an "off-balance" position, one that the viewer knows would result in a guy falling down if he tried to strike the same pose standing still...

Real smoke, muzzle flashes, "flames", flickering lights, and spinning props & rotors, although kinda "cool" and fun to do,  look silly with the main subject sitting still and figures frozen in place...

Couldn't agree more.  The picture approach is best.

You could make the blade out of clear styrene a bit larger at the end then paint them to have this effect.

took these today from my driveway.

Yeah, those would work, Hawk... Simple enough to cut the blades from stryene or ABS and paint with an airbrush... Lacking an airbrush, one could do it with succesive "wipes" of paint...

HeavyArty

Dioramas with "action" taking place are best when they depict a "snap-shot" of a moment in time and you shouldn't mix animation with stills. The key is to put figures and vehicles in an "off-balance" position, one that the viewer knows would result in a guy falling down if he tried to strike the same pose standing still...

Real smoke, muzzle flashes, "flames", flickering lights, and spinning props & rotors, although kinda "cool" and fun to do,  look silly with the main subject sitting still and figures frozen in place...

 

Couldn't agree more.  The picture approach is best.

'cos if you're gonna make the rotors spin , you might as well make motorised figures actually absailling and running all over the place...ha..ha..ha!!!

Cheers,

Richard  

The OP didn't say anything about adding figures so I assumed it would just be the aircrew and they shouldn't be moving that much during take-off.  I guess it all depends on the perspective/perception of the viewer.  I have spent more time staring at helicopters in flight so my mental image of a helo inflight is spinning rotors.  If your used to looking at pictures of helos inflight than I guess the mental image is of stopped/semi-blurred main rotors.

something like this classic photo would give a good sense of action and snapshot.

There is a dio of that very photo of those "Bravo Blues" from the 1st Cav in an 1980-something issue of Scale Modeler I used to have...   Might have been Military Modeler though...

I saw this one at the 1st Cavalry Division Museum in Ft Hood..  1/32 scale Revell D-models, I think...   IIRC, there were actually three Hueys in the diorama...

Dunno who built it,  or really anything else about it, it was like 1986 or so that I last saw it...

Legend Productions do three figure kits that will go with a Huey and will make a diorama that represents that photo. Check them out in the link. Right near the top they are....

                                   http://www.www-legend.co.kr/02_fig01.html?page=5

Justin...