UH-1E from an F + B or C?

Think this is the photo you where refering to. Notice the longer tail boom and smaller verticle fin, if you look right in front of the E in Force and the national insignia you can see the door for the luggage compartment, also the F has longer rotor blades the the E, more like those found on the D/H models

Wow guys!  I miss a couple of days and come back to all this.  The UH-1F/P has the same tailboom as the civilian Bell 204B (civilian version of the UH-1B) which was used by Air America.  It also has the 205 rotor with 48ft blade diameter (vs. 44 ft for the UH-1B) and the 205 rotorhead which lacks the blade counterweights ( it uses Tension-Torsion straps inside the blade grips instead).  Also, while not every Air Force UH-1F/P had them, the double blade antennas on the roof were common on Air Force F/P models.  Here's another UH-1F courtesy of Wayne Mutza.

   Ray

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The gun trays had no brace. I don't remember if they were bolted or welded to the forward brace. The guns did not fit tight on the tray. They actual had about a 1/4 inch plus play. As for the bracing, there was only the forward and aft brace attached to the belly hard points near the rear skid crossover tube - no other support.

 The door gun mount in the picture was designed to keep the gunners from shooting the tail up. I hated them. They were about 60 pounds each, clucky, and did not allow much aft coverage coming out of a hot LZ. In the fixed mounts, I've seen both door guns with stocks and what I called butterflies. I flew a couple missions (know hot spots) with dual M60s in the doors of slicks. These always had butterfly triggers.

In the Marine Corps, if you could convince your CO or Ops Officer, you could try anything. I shot a mini-gun out of a 53 in gunner's school and never seen one in the door of a UH-1E (at New River, NC, UH-1Ns had them for the door guns).

grandadjohn wrote:

Think this is the photo you where refering to. Notice the longer tail boom and smaller verticle fin, if you look right in front of the E in Force and the national insignia you can see the door for the luggage compartment, also the F has longer rotor blades the the E, more like those found on the D/H models

Yeah, I think that is the photo.

I know the F has several differences, it was just the combination of that post of the B with an F cowling and the typo in the book combined with the talk of B Es, C Es, Bs with 540 rotors etc that made me wonder if the USAF had done something wierd with some surplus Army and USMC Hueys making odd ball Bs, and Es with the Fs engine and side exhaust. Turns out it was just well timed coincidence and a mind looking for trouble.

I wonder if that tailboom is the same tailboom the Bell 212 used. The vertical fin sure looks identical. The horizontal stablizers are different though.

Charlie

Aaronw wrote:

grandadjohn wrote: Think this is the photo you where refering to. Notice the longer tail boom and smaller verticle fin, if you look right in front of the E in Force and the national insignia you can see the door for the luggage compartment, also the F has longer rotor blades the the E, more like those found on the D/H models   Yeah, I think that is the photo. I know the F has several differences, it was just the combination of that post of the B with an F cowling and the typo in the book combined with the talk of B Es, C Es, Bs with 540 rotors etc that made me wonder if the USAF had done something wierd with some surplus Army and USMC Hueys making odd ball Bs, and Es with the Fs engine and side exhaust. Turns out it was just well timed coincidence and a mind looking for trouble.

 If I remember right the Air Force had a surplus of Rolls Royce engines and wanted those used instead of the Lycomings the Army and Marines used and that engine dictated the side exhaust

It was GE T58-GE-3 engines that the Air Force had in abundance (same as used on the HH-3).  Usiing them required the silly looking right handed exhaust.

As i mentioned before, the tail boom on the F was the same as that used on the Bell 204B.  The 212 has a wider chord tail rotor, wider sync elevators, is located on teh right side (vs left on UH-1F),  and there is a different profile at the fuselage join.  Here's some photos for comparison.

  Ray

 Bell 204B Air America bird:

UH-1N:

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UH-1F:

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Thanks Ray, I see the differences now. You are the master!

Charlie

Charlie,

  I have spent WAAAY too much time staring at Huey tail booms!  For those who build in 1/72, you can make a nice Air America 204B from the UH-1F Italeri kit using the UH-1B cowling.  Probably the easiest Huey conversion I know.

    Ray   

I had that thought when I saw the pic. Do you know if that is natural metal and blue or silver & blue?

Also you mentioned using a UH-1D rotor to correct the Italeri UH-1C. I've got one Cobra Company rotor set, but I'm thinking about grabbing a couple of the Aeroplast Hueys for the special parts and thought the rotor might be useful for correcting some of my C based kits.

From what I've read the kits are not very good but they are cheap and have some interesting bits like floatation bags, rocket pods and a FLIR ball which are decent.

So I just need to shorten the rotor from 48 to 44 feet correct?

Also there is a neat dark blue and orange USMC HH-1K rescue helo in the UH-1 in color book, any chance anyone has more pics of it or a similar one?

"I had that thought when I saw the pic. Do you know if that is natural metal and blue or silver & blue?"

The Air America Hueys are Blue and Silver as best as I can tell from photos

"Also you mentioned using a UH-1D rotor to correct the Italeri UH-1C. I've got one Cobra Company rotor set, but I'm thinking about grabbing a couple of the Aeroplast Hueys for the special parts and thought the rotor might be useful for correcting some of my C based kits.

From what I've read the kits are not very good but they are cheap and have some interesting bits like floatation bags, rocket pods and a FLIR ball which are decent."

May be a slight mixup. I mentioned using the UH-1D rotor to correct the Italeri UH-1b rotor which is 4 scale feet too short.  To get a correct C rotor you either need the CC 540 rotor set or rob a 540 blade from a G model Cobra.  Both the B and C have 44 ft. blades, but the 540 head on the C is totally different and the blade chord is greater (21 inches on the B and 27 inches on the C).

  My personal opinion is that the Aeroplast Hueys are beyond aweful.  The rotors are positively useless IMHO and the rotor head is basically a cube of plastic, no detail whatsoever.  I wrote a review of the kits over on ARC and posted pics of all the sprues for all three versions.  Personally, I'd save my 8 bucks for a good movie!

"So I just need to shorten the rotor from 48 to 44 feet correct?"

For a UH-1B, yes.  However, if you are building either a UH-1F or a 204B you can just use the UH-1D rotor as is because both the F model and 204B had a 48ft. blade diameter. That's one of the huge mistakes in teh Italeri kit.  not only are the blades too short for a B model, they are positively pathetic for an F model being 8 scale feet too short. 

"Also there is a neat dark blue and orange USMC HH-1K rescue helo in the UH-1 in color book, any chance anyone has more pics of it or a similar one?"

i know I have one, but I'll have to find it.

   Ray

So the C and related have a different rotor from the rest of the Huey family?

I didn't know that the F had the wrong rotor too, that is rather disappointing.

I couldn't remember who posted the Aeroplast kits. I know they are terrible as a Huey kit, but I thought the general impression was that the extra parts were decent and fairly unique.

UH-1B rotorhead:

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UH-1D/H, UH-1F rotorhead:

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UH-1C, UH-1E (most of them), UH-1L, TH-1L, HH-1K rotorhead (540 rotorhead):

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The 540  is very different from all the others.

   Ray

So guys to emphasize my NEVER say NEVER motto, I give you these two photos of a UH-1E courtesy of Ed Alexander via Wayne Mutza from 1966.  Let's see who can spot the wierdness going on in these two photos.  I about fell over when I saw these!

    Ray

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Grandad,

  Now check the fuselages!

      Ray

It's just an early "B-E" before upgraded to "540 E".  Photos of earlier and later Bureau number "E"s all are in 540 garb. 

Give us a hint there Ray.........only thing that caught my eye was the odd blade grip angles on the first one. (but extreme stab bar/cyclic/coll posits could account for that)

Regards
Steve

At first look, both photos appear to show an early Echo based on the B airframe.  However, this particular bird has 204 rotorhead AND roof mounted pitot AND left handed fuel filler.  We have been talking about "540 B's" but this is a "204 C" (just made that up please don't take it literally).   Here's what I'm curious about.  Were there dual hydraulics and servos in this bird?  After all, wasn't the fuel filler moved to the left side to make room for the redundant systems in the Charlie model as well as the increased fuel capacity?  I think I mentioned a RAN UH-1B with a left handed fuel filler earlier in this thread. i've seen two of those.  However, both had nose mounted pitots. I know I'm rivet counting here, but to me these photos were very unexpected. I expected to one day see a B fuselage with a 540 head, but not the other way around.  Anyone else have pics of this configuration?  Inquiring minds want to know!

    Ray

Hey Ray........

I think your really getting wrapped around the axel on this issue.  151864 in VMO-6 colors does date her prior to 1967 (I think that was the date) of VMO-6 giving up all the Hueys to new Huey squadrons in country --167 and 367).  864 is a B-E in that photo (my catagorization).  You have made some alegations on the Pitot and fuel tankage. 

1.  It "appears" to me that 864 was a purpose built "E" bird with fuel tankage and pitots as shown.  I "think" your interchanging Army birds here. 

2.  I have photos of 1518XX aircraft above and below 864 and all have fuselage configuration the same as that pictured, fuel and pitot.  The one difference is that they had the 540 conversion.

3.  The question then becomes:  What was done in the conversions?  The 864 photo kinda tells me it didn't include changing the fuel tankage nor the pitot system which makes that a valuable photo indeed.

Regards
Steve

Steve,

  I understand the Marines do everything differently, but prior to those photos I had NEVER seen a US short cabin Huey with left handed Fuel filler, nose mounted pitot, AND a B model rotor head.  In fact, the presence of a left handed fuel filler is generally given as the "sure fire" way to tell a 540 bird from all others (I have done so on many occasions).  Now it ain't.  Thus another case of Never say Never.  Anyway, I thought it was interesting.  Whether you call it a B-E a C-E or a B/C-E is kinda symantics I guess.  I would love to see more photos of this configuration, however.  

   Ray 

PS: It's rather frustrating that the tail isn't visible as I'd be interested to know if this bird had the cambered wide chord tail found on 540 birds.  It does have the UH-1B style symmetrical sync elevators though.

Instead of "editing" my post above.........I thought I'd eat a little bit of crow here first. 

I did find an an earlier "block" of bureau numbers.....a photo of one.........that "appeared" again, to be a purpose built B-E WITH single nose mounted Pitot AND right side fuel filler........dated 1965.

So now I'll be looking for just what made up the upgrade to 540 "E".  I have a photo of one from the same block, with roof pitot and left filler along with the 540. 

Why do a partial upgrade to tank and pitot and not the 540?  Then 540 later?  Thats whats bothering me.

The Army is Soooooo much easier.

Regards
Steve

Hey Ray,

OK, some photos.

First one is 151268 one of the first as it is today in Pensacola.  Obviously has gone throught the conversions.  Might be an HH-1K here.

Next one is also an interesting one as in the VMO-6 bird above.  UH-1E built, with the B rotorhead AND the lefthand Fuel Filler and Roof Pitot.  Now the TAT turret supposedly came out in 1967.  Might date photo a bit.

The next one is interesting also from 1965 at MCAS Santa Ana, CA.  151289 UH-1E with B rotorhead and nose pitot and right fuel filler. 

Then the last one, the very FIRST UH-1E as delivered.  1964.

Hope these help some.  Now Ray.....find the upgrade orders! 

Regards
Steve

Steve,

  Good stuff!  I see you found another one of the wierd B/C-E birds (seems as good a designation as any at the moment).  That high vis scheme was pretty much gone from the Army by 67, but as we've said the Marines do things differently!  It's also interesting that the fuselage looks to be gloss OD and not the Field Green used by the Marines in most fo the Vietnam photos I have.  Here's one of the 540 E's (courtesy of wayne Mutza from Gary Zimmerman) at Phu Bai in Aug of 68 and you can see the difference when compared to the bird you posted.  That in itself is interesting.  Also, note the early bell mouth intake on this bird. By 68 most Army UH-1B's and all UH-1C's already had the particle separator installed.  Interesting, very interesting.

    Ray

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Ray, Ray, Ray.....what am i gonna do with you?    Gloss OD?  Shame Shame.........how's about a VIP flight and wash it down in Hydrastic Fluid...........instant Gloss field green.  Now a VIP flight with it's OWN self protection?    MAYBE carry one VIP.  He can carry the ammo.

I can't say that is a VIP flight...........but thats what we did to spiff them up. I have another Gun bird standing inspection that i know was washed up. 

My "catagories":

B-E = E with B head.

540-E = self expl.  Be the same as C-E. 

Then you gotta count for the tails. W W/O.  A "B-C-E" must be an E with 204 tail, and C head and E fuselage. 

Now you gotta count for Tanks/Pitots.  My personal guess is that 2 separate organizations did the upgrades.  But that's a guess.  Factory Team and or Depot. (SDLM, PAR, NARF, etc).

Regards
Steve

Steve,

  Well if that's how the Marines treat their VIP's, but the door is a different color as is the air intake on the roof.  Pretty sure the Army made sure all their VIP birds were one colorb Whatever makes you happy though!

Ray

(actually I got no idea if that is true of Army VIP birds, but I had to have a little fun, eh)

Doors and cowlings are all interchangable.  May or may not have exactly the same paint on it when it goes back on (close but not exact most of the time...........sometimes not even close.....sometimes one wonders just where they FOUND it).  Most of the time CC's keep the bureau number on the back of the removed parts, not always.  The intake looks to me to be a replacement........Army OD as it comes from the factory.  You may or may not have time to paint it prior to putting it on.

Sometimes the aircraft becomes a hodge podge of parts.  Hydraulic fluid does wonders in smoothing it all out for either an inspection or a VIP flight.  One note..........don't go into a really dusty LZ with your VIP on board..........

Steve

That bird is a perfect example of why there is no "true OD"  in any paint line.  You can find every shade of OD immaginable on Army birds at one time or another depending on age of the parts and when/where they were painted.  I'm not very suprised to see mismatched panels and doors.  In fact, it's one of the things I want to work on with my future builds, matching the mismatched nature of many Hueys in Vietnam.  I just figured you'd want one that had matching parts for hauling generals around.

   Ray

Now here's what your VIP bird should look like!

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I think that photo above with the Hydrualic fluid wax job looks pretty good as a VIP bird.  Once it washes off........it's back to being scuzzie again.

Any VIP would be proud to ride in it.  

Regards
Steve