Sky Crane/Air Crane?

Thanks, Pete

Nice Crane, Pete, I'll have to stick my head in Dennis's office and take look!

Gedenke, If you're interested, you can check out my S-64 Erickson Air-Crane @ the FSM Reader Gallery. Just type in my name, Pete Brown in the search section. It's titled "CH-54 Skycrane" for some reason. It's from the Feb 2004 FSM issue. I live in Central Point and have done several S-64 models for Erickson. Just delivered one to Dennis Hubbard yesterday as a matter of fact! Pete

air 5 wrote:

Hi there,  having built an Air Crane, I tell you there is a lot to do.  From your post I gather you work for Erickson ?, If so say hi to Dennis H.  from gg at la county fd.  To see what I did, I have some pictures in armorama.com's Gallery.  I used about 24 pieces from the kit and over 200 pieces from scratch and other kits.  Good luck on yours.  Let us see it when your done!  If you work at Erickson h/q  in Oregon, man your in the right place for referance material. air5 is by

--to air 5:

Yes, I do in fact work at Erickson in Oregon. I couldn't open any of your pics on armorama, but from the thumbs your Crane looks sharp. I've never done any scratch building, so I'm not sure if I'm ready to tackle this much of a mod, what with the fire tank and all. If you don't mind, I'd like to see how you did it, just email me if you want to share some pics, etc. Oh, that Columbia 234 is impressive too!

Actually I checked again, and they're both Revell kits. I haven't decided which one to build yet, but I'm thinking the 1/72 is almost too big. We'll see.

Hi there,  having built an Air Crane, I tell you there is a lot to do.  From your post I gather you work for Erickson ?, If so say hi to Dennis H.  from gg at la county fd.  To see what I did, I have some pictures in armorama.com's Gallery.  I used about 24 pieces from the kit and over 200 pieces from scratch and other kits.  Good luck on yours.  Let us see it when your done!  If you work at Erickson h/q  in Oregon, man your in the right place for referance material. air5 is by

The 1/100 is originaly from Tamiya as part of their series in that scale.  These kits covered several subjects up to the B-52 and the quality is supposed to be pretty good, especially the F-105 and the 52.  Aurora also had a ch-54 skycrane for some time but as you can imagine it wasn't known for its detail and is hard to find.

Lack of reference is not the issue, I actually work at the company that owns the type certificate from Sikorsky (you can do the math on that one).  I acquired two kits last night, one 1/72 and one 1/100. I'm not sure, but I think they're both from Revell, and you're right, the detail is so-so and I would have to make some mods to make it look accurate. For instance, the stiff legs and the pylon (upper tail) don't have the curved forward surfaces anymore, those are removable covers that the army used. Also, I'm going to try to make a fire tank out of the troop carrier box, and maybe even modify the cabin to a "long cab", versus the "short cab" included w/ the kit. I would also need to make some fire shields over/behind the engines. Wish me luck on those...any tips would be great.

Oh, thanks for the info anyway!

The Revel kit isn't too bad, it is just pretty basic.  If you are doing an Ericson bird this will be of some benefit.  All of the shapes are right but the head, winch, ENGINES and office need alot more detail.  The challenge for a -54 project is the lack of reference material.  I have one sitting on my shelf but it is only going to gather dust until I find more info.

I just checked out the article Phil. I have never gotten my hands on the Aurora kit to compare, but from what I see the true shape is somewhere between the two kits.  If you look at the scratchbuild reference from that article you can get a decent idea of how the beast looks.

 

Mac

The Revell kit dates back to the early 70's if not earlier.

You may find this article helpful.

(Edit) If you are doing an Erickson, check out the drawings at this section of the Erickson site

Revell makes a 1/72 CH-64A Skycrane.
I can't tell you how the model is since I haven't built it (yet).