I wanted a project, and for my sins, they gave me one... (HH-3E Jolly Green Giant build thread)

OK here's some pics, apologies for the quality as usual.

This shows the magnets holding the halves of the fuselage together, corresponding magnets on the other half, the fuselage is such a good fit that these 4 magnets is all that the model needs.

These next 2 pics show the undercarriage on and off, I've attached them using magnets, so I can remove them when I hang it from my ceiling...

Plasticard around the door, the door isn't fixed in, or at least it shouldn't be.  Still need to sand/file down the black plasticard as it's too thick in my opinion.

Rear ramp exterior -

Drop tanks are detachable, again magnets, wonderful little things, although I may take my razor saw to the bits on the end of each sponson where the drop tanks attach, hack them off, glue them to the drop tanks and then re-attach via magnets that way and smooth out the gap left on the sponsons, so that I can have the smooth sided sponsons or the drop tank holding sponsons -

Here you can see where I've had to fill the gaps in between the fuselage and the sponson where I've put Green Stuff to make them level, I tried using squadron filler, think I should have got some Mr Surfacer instead, you can also see the magnets that hold the undercarriage on -

That's it so far, I'm stuck waiting for my Fujimi SH-3H Sea King kit to arrive from Japan before I can progress much further.

go forth and sin no more

Looking for some M60's in 1/72 to put in the window on the left and door on the right and perhaps on the rear ramp, so far the only decent ones I've come across are these - www.herpa.de/.../detail.aspx

There in 1/87 and I'm not sure they're all M60's either.

And I may also be using this crew set as it has a gunner that may work for the door on the right hand side - www.modelhobbies.co.uk/.../productions-helicopter-crew-vietnam-721129-p-45357.html

Found some awesome reference pics the other day.

Here (Russian language site from what I can make out) - igor113.livejournal.com/191567.html

And here (not so close up though) - www.airliners.net/.../photo.search

Thanks Mel.  It's very likely that I measured it wrong anyway.

Anyhoo I've assembled the majority of the model that comes in the kit - there's not really a lot of it.  Nice build and the fuselage fits together quite nicely, although I think I need to sand down the "spine" of the helicopter to make it look less sharp where the fuselage halves meet.

I'm kind of hesitant of posting pics though, due to the lack of quality my BlackBerry 8900 gives, the pics I took of my Huey were a bit hit and miss, I'll see how some turn out this time.

I'm waiting on the Fujimi SH-3H which is obviously on a slow boat from Japan as it hasn't reached me yet, I can't progress much further without it.

But I do have some sanding/filing to do because I cut the door on the right hand side out (I like they way Helo-34 (Helo-53 on ARC) did that), but I got a bit over zealous (and used a Dremel which I probably shouldn't have) and there was quite a sizeable gap between what was left of the door and the rest of that half of the fuselage.  So I took some plasticard and cut it to fit around the door on the outside so it covers up the gap, but it's 40though (I think) plasticard and it looks too thick in my opinion, so I need to file/sand it down some.

I also added a piece of the same 40though plasticard to the rear door on the outside, because there were some rather nasty moulding circles on it, again it's a bit thick but doesn't look too bad, I can live with it, certainly looks better than the original door did on it's exterior.

@USAFSPOOK - Yes I saw the Black Mariah the other day.  Not sure I like a plain matt black Jolly Green though, but yes if I mess up the SEA camo I'll certainly consider it.  With regards to the landing gear - what would you recommend?  I can't really use the Fujimi SH-3H landing gear because I'll only have left/right because it doesn't have nose gear, just a tail wheel.

You could do an overall black scheme to represent "Black Mariah" of the 20th SOS in Vietnam.  She now resides in the Museum of the United States Air Force.  The only markings are the serial number in red on the tail--39676.  Not sure if that is how marked during the war but is how she is marked now.  Many of the HH-3s used by the 20th and 21st SOS in Vietnam did not carry any markings or carried the national insignia in a removable bracket for cross border operations into Laos, so you could leave it in a SEA scheme with no markings at all--just the usual warning markings in red.  Might consider replacing the tail rotor and landing gear as well.