Building a fleet of 1/72 Italeri UH-34 Seahorse's

I decided to make a cabin roof section to fit into the H-34's ;

I cut some plastic sheet and airbrushed the pieces interior gray .

Cobra Company's S-58 nose section fits okay , I just needed to taper the cockpit floor and front bulkhead a little .

                           John

I started some more Sikorsky H-34/Wessex builds ;

I'm not sure if I may have already consumed to much chocolate this Easter weekend , once I opened one H-34 kit box , the easter madness started ....

                                            John.

I just finished this HUS-1G USCG helicopter today

Here are two previous H-34 builds ...

USMC UH-34D

Israeli IDF S-58

                                                                      John .

I'm very gratefull for the link , Len .

I'll check out the airliners web site .

John.

Aaronw

 It really would be nice if they included or at least clearly labeled which style was in the box (which to this point I thought they did).

That was exactly my thinking Aaron ; the original Italeri Seahorse kit was labeled UH-34D and the 2007 release was labeled UH-34J , [ despite having the same box art picture as the earlier UH-34D kit ]

My purchases are quite recent , if you have had your UH-34J kits for a while now , like my first three kits , they will probably have the V style landing gear . Italeri may have fired up the mold to issue more and most likely didn't think many modelers would worry about the different landing gear styles ; and as Len mentioned , it would be just to easy to include both . The rest of the UH-34J kits I've ordered should arrive by the end of next week , I would be interested in a bent gear leg for a V style landing gear swap , I'm happy to absorb the shipping costs by adding some locally produced aftermaket decals or resin kits etc , I'll just have to wait and see what's in each box when they arrive , there coming from four different hobby shops .

                          John .

John,

The overall colors for that particular Sikorsky S-58 demonstrator are medium grey and dark blue. Go to www.airliners.net and do a search on N866 -- your best bet for matching will be to find paints that will give you the same shades as the Chicago Helicopter S-58Cs. There were a couple of other demonstrators, none of them with identical schemes.

Hope you'll post some images during the builds, or at least of the finished products. I've got a pair of the Italeri UH-34D kits set aside for an S-58C conversion and my ship's hack in Vietnam.

Len

That is odd, I have one Italeri UH-34D kit with the bent leg landing gear, and several UH-34J kits which so far all have the V style landing gear, although I haven't checked every one of them. It really would be nice if they included or at least clearly labeled which style was in the box (which to this point I thought they did).

I've been buying the Hobbyboss kit as needed for aircraft with the bent leg, but have been hoping Italeri would bring back their UH-34D since the Italeri kit is better. Worst case I'd be willing to swap you a few V style parts for the bent leg, but I think  shipping would make that somewhat unattractive.

Hi Len ,

Thanks for the info , I do have your illustrated History H-34 Book and Its an awesome book , I also have the sikorsky  HH-52A book .

I understand what your saying about the designation of the helicopter during the point of production , many photo's in your book show the UH-34J with both landing gear styles ; It's just the way Italeri box their kit without giving the modeler any idea of what we are getting....very frustrating

I'm waiting on the arrival of an Westland Wessex book I ordered recently along with some more 1/72 scale Sikorsky/Westland H-34/S-58 kits . At last count of whats in my stash and what I have ordered there are 11 UH-34J kits , 7 HU-5 Wessex and 5 HAS-3 wessex  , lots of aftermarket decals for the wessex birds along with some resin and PE stuff . Also 3 Hobbyboss H-34's [2UH-34D's and 1 UH-34A] , it's a shame Hobbyboss molded the droop in the main rotors upside down , I snapped two rotor blades trying to bend them back the opposite way , I'll have to be more carefull with the other two sets of hobbyboss rotors .

The UH-34J kits with the Bent gear legs came from overseas online hobby stores , the three with the V style landing gear I picked here locally in Australia , so I took the gamble and ordered 5 more UH-34J kits yesterday and this morning from some local hobby stores , I'm kinda hoping  they might have the V style landing gear , if not , your book has plenty of reference photo's for lot's of other options .

Kind regards ,

                                           John .

John,

Giving both patterns of landing gear would have been way too easy. Unfortunately, it wasn't the aircraft designation that determined the gear, but the point in the production history. The same is true with the kicksteps up to the cockpit.

I don't believe I have a color picture on file of that Sikorsky demonstrator, but I'll see what I can find out for you.

Cheers,

Len

Does anyone know what the color scheme is on this H-34/S-58