R-4 - Anyone see an interior to one?

Here is all I have.  Didn't get a shot of the instrument panel.

Beautiful shots that will help me just the same.

Thanks so much, Mel. 

I was just sitting in that bird today!

Been working on my Special Hobby kit as well.  I'm building it while researching WWII helicopters and I'm hopefully going to publish something on them in the not so distant future.  The basic interior color is Chromate Green.  Special Hobby got a lot of things right with the kit, but they also messed up a few things, like including TWO collectives.  There's only one in the R-4, and its mounted between the seats.  Messes with your head if you've gotta fly left seat!  

In any case, here's a couple cockpit shots:

Great shots!  Saved them for future refference!  Our "guide" the day I took my pictures was a short fellow who was one of the first Army Presidential Pilots.  Forget his name, but Willie Rupp comes to mind.  He later was a Test Pilot on the Black Hawks.  He had us sit in the Presidential VH-34 and told us stories about the Presidents he flew in the early to mid 60's before the Marine Corps took over.  He said a few years ago at the Annual Reunion of the Marine Pilots that flew the Presidents one of the young guys looked at the Army Presidential Unit Patch on his blazer and commented he was wearing the "Marines" patch.  The Marine Commander said, "No!  We are wearing theirs!".   

Willie Ruf!  The man is a legend!  Yep, I know him well, and I'm fortunate to be one of the few current flight students that he knows by name.  He had one heck of an aviation career, and did just about everything one could do in Army Aviation. 

I've been working hard on my R-4B tonight and have gotten the fuselage halves together and seams (read TRENCHES) filled.  Tail rotor has had wire added for the control cables, and I've attached it to the fuselage as well.  Now to tweak the main rotor, adjust the gaps between the windscreen halves and I'll be ready for paint. 

Jon
 

Jon,

Wow! Thanks! just what I was looking for!

Are you doing yours with doors on or off? I was thinking of doing one door on, one door off to show the interior.

I'm building mine as an operational machine from the 2nd Aircraft Repair Unit, so the doors will be off.  If you're building a stateside trainer they would have been on, but in the Pacific EVERY shot I have has the doors removed.  

I will say, this kit is a BEAST!  Its coming together, but only with a lot of extra sheet and rod styrene.  I completely replaced the landing gear outrigger frames and haven't even started on the tailwheel frame yet.  The cockpit and transmission decking were crap, so I replaced them with sheet styrene and the fit got a LOT better.  Of course the resin stuff is very nice, but the molding quality is pretty crappy overall.

Still, it is the only game in town, and it does build up into a good replica of the "whirligig".

Jon

Are you guys doing the 1/48 or the 1/72 kit?  Neither one is worth a pair of dingo's kidney's (to quote my favorite book). 

 For the R-4 being the first helicopter used in combat (1st Air Commando Group in Burma), you'd think that there would be a decent kit out there. 

You're right about the Special Hobby kit. Not great. Not even good. But, it's the only game in town. It's better than nothing -- just barely.

Did anyone else have a hard time getting the #$%&@$  resin cockpit components lined up?

Its the 48th scale kit, and yes, it is a hunk of junk, but apparently even a turd can be polished to a high sheen.  I did have issues with the resin bits lining up properly.  In fact, all of the styrene bulkheads were tossed and replaced with styrene sheet cut to the proper shape.  That helped the alignment some.  

In fact, the kit is not accurate for one of the 1st ACG birds.  Those were YR-4As and had several differences from the aircraft the kit represents.  The 1st ACG got some publicity with the helicopters, but the R-4B and R-6A first saw real combat in the Philippines in late spring 1945 and performed the first medevac missions there.  Some incredible stuff!

Jon 

Cobrahistorian wrote:

In fact, the kit is not accurate for one of the 1st ACG birds.  Those were YR-4As and had several differences from the aircraft the kit represents.

I know there were some differences with the exhaust pipes (short vs long ones) but what were the other differences?  I want to do the Air Commando version. Thanks.

Ed,

There are a few minor differences.  I'm sure they could be scratchbuilt pretty easily.  On the right side, just aft of the cabin door is an intake scoop on the YR-4A that was refined to an intake vent on the R-4B.  As you mentioned, the exhaust configuration is a bit different too.  And lastly, the fuselage fabric where the tail rotor frame joins the fuselage extends up towards the tail rotor on the YR-4A and stops flush on the R-4B.  

I don't know about interior differences, and unfortunately there are no YR-4A's left.  I do have shots of the XR-4 at the Udvar Hazy Center in DC and the cockpit configurations are a little different (mainly the antitorque pedal construction and some other minor stuff) but that's about all I can come up with right now.  

These are the two YR-4 shots that I have:

Before all you're resonses, I contacted the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum about information about the XR-4 in their collection. The've been good responding to requests in the past so If I get anything, I'll share.

I've got a few images of the R-4 from a small information sheet from the National Helicopter Museum in Connecticut but it only had external images and what you've all provided here were much better.

If  anyone is interested, I can scan the document and e-mail it to them.

If you could email them to me it would be much appreciated.

I have this kit also and have plans on building it sometime this year.

Thanks guys, good stuff.

nightwalker32@yahoo.com

Udvar-Hazy's 'cut-away'......

Nice pics!  Got a few of my own when I was there a couple months ago.

That's the original XR-4 that was upgraded to XR-4C standard (don't ask me what the mods were, I have no idea at this point!) later in the war.  I'm pretty sure it was an engine upgrade, but not 100% sure.  By the time the XR-4C was being tested, the R-5 and R-6 helicopters were doing a great deal more than the Hoverfly could have.  Unfortunately, that cut the R-4B's career drastically short and most were pulled from service, including those used for training.

I seriously need to get out of here and start writing this book!

Jon

mikepowers wrote:

If you could email them to me it would be much appreciated. I have this kit also and have plans on building it sometime this year. Thanks guys, good stuff. nightwalker32@yahoo.com

Sorry, I've been out of this forum for a while. I'll try to scan what I got in the next couple of days and e-mail them to you.

Jon,

  Do you have this R-4pic?  I thought it was pretty cool.   

           Ray
 

" border="0" />