Progress pics on my UH-1D 63-8794(updated with new pics)

Awesome news!!

Can you reattach those pics or a link to them? I can't get them to work

Chris

I found this thread while researching the history of our museum's UH-1H.  It was a shock to learn that it was a bird with a combat history.  We assumed it was an anonymous Fort Rucker trainer.  It became surplus property and was claimed by the State of Alabama for possible Medevac use.  It was crashed on a demo flight, and was rebuilt, but the FAA declined to certify a single engine helicopter for Medevac service.  It was later overpainted in OD with spurious markings and used in a nonflying background role in the movie "We Were Soldiers".  With no operational mission in sight, the state released the chopper to us for display.  We got it missing a tail rotor but with a live battery and electric system.

We parked it in the front yard and let it weather for a few years, but the cheap movie paint job was looking pretty seedy, so last year, we started looking into spiffing it up.  It was while researching for the repaint that we found the connection with Robert Mason and also found this Finescale thread.

I'm attaching a few photos I took this afternoon.  We're not done yet, and I don't think we'll be able to get everything as right as I'd like, but it won't embarrass us. 

Eli

IPMS #2164

Veterans Memorial Museum

Huntsville, AL

skypirate1 wrote:

67Beast, Thats a great looking "Preacher" bird you have there! Cant wait to see the finished diorama and how the smoke grenade effect turns out. I love the 5th picture with the silhouette of the guy looking down, you could almost wonder what hes thinking! Great stuff! From the photos ive seen the ammo bags look pretty spot on to me, but ive never seen one in the "flesh" so to speak, so im not qualified to say. The only slight thing that stands out for me that i probably wouldnt do ( and please remember im an absolute modeling novice) is the brown bits in the troopers helmets, I may be wrong but they seem to stand out a little more than they should, i would probably stick with OD, or use a more subtle brown. I havnt tackled my crew figures yet but ive noticed in a few of the model pics ive seen by guys who have used them, is the uniforms tend to have a glossy sheen to them! Is that unavoidable or can Matt varnish sort that out? One last thing, where did you get that (need Rays help here as i dont know the correct name for it :) ) WHITE "Fin" above the cockpit?? Ive seen it on a few of the early 229 birds and would be grateful to know how to get my hands on some. Great build, look forward to seeing more pics. Andy.

 The white fin was done by using the little Bell logo on the Fireball decal sheet and hand painting the check mark under it.  It appeared that way in several pics I found from the 229th during early on. Here is a pic from Masons site

The sheen on the uniforms seems to be from the flash of the camera, because they appear flat in natural light.  And the flash seems to have brightened the light brown in the Mitchell Leaf pattern on the helmets.  In natural light, they are closer to the light brown on the real helmets the I have in my collection.  This probably is what makes the ammo bags look more tannish the olive drab.  I force flashed the camera in those close up pics to try and bring out some of the stuff that was hiding in the shadows of the cabin area.  I also took the pics without flash and in those you can not even tell that there are other guys sitting and kneeling in the cabin.  Here is a pic of the Mitchell Leaf pattern helmets I have.

Andy,

  Here are a few pics of a white UHF/VHF blade antenna on Uh-1B 60-3554 at the Army Aviation Museum:

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The teardrop shaped antenna at the bottom of the pic is a  ADF (Automatic Direction Finder) antenna.

   Ray 

Andy,

  The white blade is a UHF/VHF antenna and is included in the Dragon/Panda UH-1D (part D13) and is molded as two halves on the roof of the MRC Fuselage halves.  Most were OD green, but some were white.

      Ray

67Beast,

Thats a great looking "Preacher" bird you have there! Cant wait to see the finished diorama and how the smoke grenade effect turns out. I love the 5th picture with the silhouette of the guy looking down, you could almost wonder what hes thinking! Great stuff! From the photos ive seen the ammo bags look pretty spot on to me, but ive never seen one in the "flesh" so to speak, so im not qualified to say.

The only slight thing that stands out for me that i probably wouldnt do ( and please remember im an absolute modeling novice) is the brown bits in the troopers helmets, I may be wrong but they seem to stand out a little more than they should, i would probably stick with OD, or use a more subtle brown.

I havnt tackled my crew figures yet but ive noticed in a few of the model pics ive seen by guys who have used them, is the uniforms tend to have a glossy sheen to them! Is that unavoidable or can Matt varnish sort that out?

One last thing, where did you get that (need Rays help here as i dont know the correct name for it :) ) WHITE "Fin" above the cockpit?? Ive seen it on a few of the early 229 birds and would be grateful to know how to get my hands on some.

Great build, look forward to seeing more pics.

Andy.

Look at these. Just in case my monitor is not set up right compare these to yours. these are the right color.

leadfooterm535i wrote:

The brass bags on the M60's. they look tan. field drab or light olive drab would be more realistic. We used the same brass bags on our M60Ds on the UH-60. They were hand-me downs from back-in-da-day. Most of our pigs were refurbished 'Nam 60s; some were dated with '66 or '67, don't remember that well. our armorer looked into it since he was trying to make a case for our unit to get up to date aero weapons. FAT CHANCE!!!!!! nerver got the request past brigade.

 I used MM olive drab because it was a good match to the canvas seats I have in my restored 1967 M715 weapons carrier.  I figured that the canvas bags had to be similar in color to the canvas used on the vehicles of the era.

Dave,

  Nice Buid, man!  Maybe mine will turn out half as good!

     Ray

  Great looking Huey you got there Dave!

Andy

Lots of pics, as I have the helo mainly done as I build the dio base for the LZ setting.  The dio will have the helicopter coming in and flaring for a landing with the troops getting ready to get out.  I have the Legends cav figure who is hanging off the skids that I'll add after I mount the helicopter in the dio.  I also plan to have some of Dragons cav figures on the ground.  I will add some more weathering to the helicopter once it's mounted.

Avus wrote:

Great work Dave! It's coming along very nice. It's only a shame that Panda put those huge rivets on this helo, which is to me the worst flaw on this model ... but this has been said millions of times before and I didn't mean to detract the beauty of your work.

Yep, thanks.  I lightly sanded the rivets along most of the body to help minimize them somewhat.  It is such a shame that they were molded so big. 

Great work Dave! It's coming along very nice.

It's only a shame that Panda put those huge rivets on this helo, which is to me the worst flaw on this model ... but this has been said millions of times before and I didn't mean to detract the beauty of your work.

Yep, 879 was Reachers ship, (really Gene Burdick) until Mason hit the tail rotor on a stump hidden in the dust busting off the gear box.

And thanks Gino, your Dust-Off Huey pics really help when building the interior on mine.

beauty!!

wasn't 879 Reacher's bird with some fine tuning done to the turbine?  the most powerful bird in the group?..until Mason wrecked it?....I'll have to flip through my book and find out....

looking good  keepup the good work...