I have started on another project I have wanted to do for a while. I am building an early UH-60A Black Hawk from Operation Urgent Fury, the US invasion of Grenada in Oct 1983. This was the first combat action the Black Hawk helicopter had seen, its baptism by fire. These early UH-60As had no wire strike kits, open exhaust, no ESSS wing attachments, no chaff buckets, M60D doorguns, etc.
Here is one in Grenada.
So far, I have started a test to see if the open exhausts from one of Kitty Hawk’s Naval H-60s would fit onto an Academy fuselage. I want to use the Academy fuselage since it is a cleaner one and earlier than the Kitty Hawk H-60 fuselage. Kitty Hawk’s has a later transmission access panel on the starboard side and reinforcing strips on the tailboom and other areas. Academy’s fuselage is pretty clean with no extra (later) features.
I have the Kitty Hawk Naval HH-60H kit, which has the open exhausts as extra parts since it uses HIRSS exhausts like an Army H-60. I also had bought an extra KH MH-60L C sprue which contains all the other parts for the engine cowlings.
Here it is so far to show that the KH open exhausts and engine cowlings fit on the Academy fuselage. I did have to do some cutting and remove most of the Academy engine cowl parts. It will require a bit of filling and sanding to blend it all together, but a good start.
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Gino P. Quintiliani - Field Artillery - The KING of BATTLE!!!
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"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell