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

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

[img]http://" border="0" />[/img]

UH-1B rotorhead:

 " border="0" />

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

 " border="0" />

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

[img]http://

The 540  is very different from all the others.

   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.

"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

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?

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   

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

Charlie

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:

[img]http://

UH-1F:

[img]http://" border="0" />

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

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

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.

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).

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

" border="0" />

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

grandadjohn wrote:

That Huey Jon mentions is on display only and never flew as a F model. The F is it's own model with it's own features. The UH-1P (which has the same set-up) is nothing more then an armed F

Ok, so someone just put an F cowling on that helicopter for display purposes and the one in the book is a typo then.

Thanks

Ok, as if this thread has not covered enough ground or become confusing enough. Did the USAF modify other helicopters with the F's engine and side exhaust?

I was looking through Squadron's UH-1 in color and there is what looks like a USAF UH-1F but the caption says UH-1E. I would assume a typo but Chris (Cobrahistorian) made the post the other day about the UH-1B used for Tow missile evaluations being restored. The photo of the helicopters current status appears to have the same F style cowling, making me wonder if the USAF made up some patchwork "UH-1Fs" from other short bodied UH-1s? 

OH , I'm such an idiot .

After looking at the pic I just posted , that's not a support brace but the barrell of the lower fixed machine gun . . Sorry about my previous post .

                                         John

 I greatly appreciate the additional info on the rescue hoist , Huey367 , and those recent pic's you added are awesome . .

Here's a pic you guy's previously posted and it appears that the machine gun tray has a lower support brace attatched at the bottom corner of the front portion of the tray going back to the cabin floor ??? [ I tried to draw a red arrow at what I'm looking at ] .

Also did the M-60 machine gun mounted inside the cabin retain the pistol grip or did it have spade grips added to the back of the gun ? .

I ordered a copy of Marines and Helicopters from Amazon as well .

                                           John.

Somebody asked about the rescue hoist. It was anchored to the floor in a flange that was bolted to the floor and a large bolt secured the flange to the hoist pole. There was a red button high on the bulkhead between the pilot and starboard cargo door. The emergency release switch was to fire an explosive charge in the squib to cut the cable if it got hung up. The hoist could be operated by a tongle switch on that control panel or with a control box on a long cable connected below the emergency release switch. The hoist motor housing did cover part of the pilot's greenhouse (green tinted windows over the pilot and co-pilot).

 The Huey also had a cargo hooks mounted internally under the transmission in what we called the "hell hole". It was full of hydralic lines and switches - dark, hot, and oilly.

 Behind the aft sound proofing was a large panel (2' x 4') that opened to access some hydralic switches and the lower part of the transmission. I always thought the engineers put it there to tease you because you still had to go inside the hell hole to work in that area.

The weapons rack attached to the Huey just forward of the rear skid crossover tube at two hard points on each side of the Huey. The rack was simply two steel tubes with two tubes of the same size welded between them. The outboard tube supported the firing assembly for the external weapons attachment. The M60s were on two trays forward of the rocket pod which sat to the rear of the rack.

The 7 shot rocket pod was used until we coulp liberate a pair of 19 shot pods. Finally they were phased out. A small device was used to arm the rocket pods and to set the firing timing. It was replaced and a control panel was added between the pilot and co-pilot at the rear of the console to allow access by the crew chief also. The device was called an intervelometer. Picture shown in crew chief's hand. It is placed in the rear of the pod and the whole pod could fire when being set - no ground safety switch.

HML-367 VT-21 Double Nuts

VT -6 HML-367

USN UH-1E

Crew Chief with Pole door gun mount

Crew Chief with meat hook on bungie cord. The hook would be placed in the M60's carrying handle

In the picture of the weapons rack, the other type of door mount can be made out. It was a huge clunky mount that was I hated. I have a picture of one that I have been looking for.

UH-1E rotor head and engine.

John,

  I just got the Marines and Helicopters book.  It is excellent but it is more text than photos.  There are two photos of aircraft with the TK-2 kit, but none are close ups that tell you more than the ones you've already seen.  If you are interested in the history of the aircraft and how they were used in Vietnam, however, it is an excellent resource.

    Ray 

I've been looking closely at these two images you guy's have kindly posted and I think I finally figured out how those two main support braces are attatched to the underside of the fuselage . So I'll start assembling my two Echo's and see if I can manage to scratch-build two sets of four under fuselage brackets

someone also mentioned this book ,

Amazon.com have three copies currently available , I was wondering if the book had some additional close-up photo's of the TK-2 Gun mount ???

                                        Kind regards John

Hi Ray ,

Those two pic's are really great . It still appears that the twin machine gun mounts are just sitting on that front rocket pod support brace , it's hard to tell if the gun mount has additional bacing back to the fuselage ???

                                                Kind regards John

Those are some great shots Randy.  As far as the TK-2 system, the pics I posted on page 1 are still some of the best I have seen of the entire system as it was used in Vietnam.  Here they are again.  Do they help any of you guys looking for details or have you already found these?

  Ray

" border="0" />

" border="0" />

Thank you so much supercobra for all those awesome pics of the UH-1E gun mounts and rescue hoist . I have been spending a lot of time looking at popasmoke and scareface web sites for images of the Echo and the TK2 weapons mount , as well as FSM forum pages .

Of interest is the motor housing on the roof of the Echo , some pic's I have seen show part of the housing covering a portion of the overhead tinted window panel and some other pic's it appears to be set back away from the glass panel .

Also the support pole inside the cabin for the rescue hoist , how is it attatched to the cabin floor ??? , is it just a flange plate welded to the bottom of the pole and simply bolted to the floor ? .

                                 Kind regards John

P.S. Thank's again for all those additional images , very much appreciated .