Vietnam Huey

skypirate1 wrote:

Shaun68 I agree chickenhawk is a good read but check out this link, it may shock you, as it did me, its from 1/9th Air Cav website. http://www.9thcav.com/Trashing%20A%20Troop.htm Andy

Hmmm... this is the first time I have seen Chickenhawk criticised in this way and I must say that I am a little confused by the article at the 9th Cav site. The article is titled 'Taking Fire... by Alexander and Sasser'. This is the name of a book which was widely degraded as a work of fiction when released (whether justified or not, I'm not qulified to judge) and is presumably the target of the 'Crap Alert' article. Why there is a prominent link to the seemingly unrelated Chickenhawk book by Robert Mason (who flew with 1st Cav?) has me completely baffled.

Can anyone offer an explanation?

Time for a BIG catch up post

This thread is coming along nicely, Theres some great info, pictures and links and its helped out loads with my first attempt at building a huey in 22 years, so just want to say thanks to everyone that has contributed so far.

My 1/32 Revell UH-1H is coming along very slowly as i want to get it right this time, The last huey i built was in 1985. It was the old 1/48 monogram "Rambo" gunship and i threw it together in about an hour with glue that came in a tube (most of which ended up decorating the seams and windows) eventually moved onto building galleons and became pretty good at it, i could probly make the shrouds and rigging with my eyes closed now but try to do a wash or weather a huey and im 12 years old again.

Washes, weathering, scratching, spray painting and putty are all new to me, in my day if you had a gap you filled it with as much glue from that tube as you could and painted over it with paint that had the consistency of cream cheese and a brush as thick as your arm and hard enough to take chunks outa plastic lol and if you could ignore the lumps, bumps, bubbles, melted plastic and glue strands you had a beautiful thing.

Anyway, after seeing some amazing model hueys built by people on here and on other sites it is as inspiring as it is frustrating to see what can be acheived with the right know-how. And thats why i started this thread to pick the brains of the experts to help the newcomers like me.

As far as my huey project is concerned im stuck, im still looking for something that is the right scale for the crew seat poles in the cargo section in 1/32, I think a cocktail stick is the right scale for the support pole on either side of the huey, but trying to find something hollow and thinner than a cocktail stick for the front pole for the main back seat is becoming a mission. also i wasnt happy with the the gull gray (grey) for the interior, as compared to the pictures its way to dark, so ive mixed my own but this could be a problem as i still have 3 other hueys on the shelf and one on order so would love to know what you guys use so i can go and get a few pots.

Now to olive drab, in the UK the main paint suppliers are humbrol and revell and i have humbrol matt 86 light olive which i used on my AH-1G and it looks about right for Vietnam era helos, then i discovered humbrol 155 olive drab which looks alot browner but still the right color so im not sure which to use for my huey, to add to the confusion i found a local hobby shop that sells tamiya olive drab spray cans (the aerosol type) so if anyone knows which is best please let me know

For all those wanting to build a huey i will try to sum things up so far...

If you want to build a slick or medevac..

1/32 = Revell UH-1H Gunship

This UH-1H comes with options for miniguns, XM157 rocket pods and M60C quad guns.

Leave the armaments off unless your building a RAAF Bushranger Gunship in which case although the forward mounted miniguns are accurate the rockets are not, you will need M158 7 tube rocket launchers and mounts placed behind the jump doors. The US did not have any UH-1H helos armed with external guns or rockets, the main reason was weight.

The gunships role was to go ahead of the UH-1H/D troop slicks and prep the landing zone ready for insertion and then to hang around and provide support untill the last of the slicks had left. Even the smaller UH-1B & C model hueys employed for this role were deemed to slow as due to the weight of the armaments they had trouble getting ahead of the main group to prep the LZ, so the huey cobra was created for this role. So you can see why the UH-1H was not used by the US as a gunship, although some had their door mounted M60s replaced with miniguns and and spotlights for night fire support they did not qualify as "gunships". 

The Revell model doesnt come with crew seats, Gunners or the door mounted M60's.

For door guns in both 1/32 & 1/35 aswell as armoured pilot seats go to

http://www.cobracompany.com/index.htm

For Crew figures the Dragon/DML 3311 US helicopter crew set, are your best bet, although out of production they pop up on ebay at times for a price!

1/35 = Panda UH-1D 1st Air cav, although the rivets are a bit on the big side.

1/48 = Esci UH-1D Medevac, i dont know how good the kit is but it looks ok.

For those wanting to build a Gunship the best kits are..

Academy/MRC 1/35 UH-1C Heavy Hog

Academy/MRC 1/35 UH-1C Frog

The Frog is the best option as it comes with all the armaments of the Hog ship aswell plus some extras.

1/48 monogram/Revell huey hog comes with M6 quad M60 machine guns and rocket launchers, in some of the kits there is also an option for the nose mounted M5-40mm grenade launcher, this armament configuration is wrong. For weight purposes the gunships were most commonly armed with either..

Rockets & Quad M60's

Rockets & Miniguns

Rockets & M5 grenade launcher 

Door guns were mostly sling mounted

I think that covers quite a bit, i need a rest now lol

Andy

vflight wrote:

skypirate1 wrote: Shaun68 I agree chickenhawk is a good read but check out this link, it may shock you, as it did me, its from 1/9th Air Cav website. http://www.9thcav.com/Trashing%20A%20Troop.htm Andy     Hmmm... this is the first time I have seen Chickenhawk criticised in this way and I must say that I am a little confused by the article at the 9th Cav site. The article is titled 'Taking Fire... by Alexander and Sasser'. This is the name of a book which was widely degraded as a work of fiction when released (whether justified or not, I'm not qulified to judge) and is presumably the target of the 'Crap Alert' article. Why there is a prominent link to the seemingly unrelated Chickenhawk book by Robert Mason (who flew with 1st Cav?) has me completely baffled.   Can anyone offer an explanation?

Looking at it again it seems you could be right Vflight, at first glance it appears to be about Chickenhawk, why the links are there is strange and misleading. Just checked my book and Mason was in Company B, 229th AHB, 1st Cav.

So im as baffled as you

Just noticed that for a model huey thread we have no pictures of huey models lol, i will add pictures of mine as soon as i can. If anyone has any pictures of there hueys please add them.

Thanks

Andy

Good idea Andy! I'll see if I can dig out some of mine and show them. Of course, mine will be in the 'forgotten' scale of 1/72, but I think I did fairly well on them.

I should have them posted up in a day or so. 

Nice one maddog ive got a couple of 1/72 gunships to do so wil be interested to see yours.

Andy.

Gents

I've been unable to reply to this thread for a couple of weeks.  I'm President of our local IPMS chapter and we're having our annual show Mar 31^st so a lot has been coming together lately.  If any of you are in the Long Island, NY area check us out, it's going to be a great show.

In our previous show venue, whenever I was in charge, I always got our local Air National Guard unit to fly a Huey in for the day and it was always a major attraction.  This was 8 plus yrs ago.  I was asked - so I asked them, if they could also fly in a Blackhawk.  The NG half jokingly told me, "the only way will be if we sling it in under a Huey!"  Seemed the Hueys kept on ticking but the Blackhawks spent lotsa time on the ground!  Our new venue doesn't have room for a Huey but we'll have restored military ground vehicles...

Anyway, many questions on the thread have been answered but a few things I can add.  Whenever FSM would ask readers what models do we want, I would always list the Huey B/C and D/H in 1/72 and 1/35 and 1/32 and I'd specify specific armaments.  I'd also point out that nobody provided the D/H with the usual slick single M-60 per side though that is THE Vietnam War icon. 

Whenever I'd go to an IPMS National I'd talk to mfr's reps and repeat that.  A little optimistic maybe, but since I started speaking up (and I'm not taking credit for it) Panda did come out with the 1/35 D/Hs and MRC/Academy their gunships.  If you've followed FSMs lists you have to admit that a lot of asked for models have become reality over the years.  So guys, talk it up, let the mfrs know we want Hueys, properly armed!

You guys have mentioned Fireballmodels decals a couple of times - they've got some excellent noseart slicks including Miss Annie Fanny of the 117 AHC, and my "Nevada Gambler" from C Co, 227 AHB's ‘Ghostriders', 1^st Air Cav.  One thing I noticed was that we weren't consistent on how our main rotors, tail rotors and stabilizers were painted.  Time frame made a difference too.  Our main and tail rotors were painted O.D. both sides, with the yellow tips.  Before I left I started seeing the top of one main rotor painted white which really caught your eye.  Fireball shows two 1967 slicks with a 36 inch band centered on the top of one main rotor, painted white.  They show their tail rotor tips in red white red.  There were tech manuals and tech orders specifying how things should be.  I recall that soon after I got there we had to paint ‘buzz numbers' under our stabilizers when poppa-san got pissed when we'd buzz his water buffalo and they'd run away...  BTW IPMS published my Nevada Gambler markings and then Monogram used them on their 1/24 C (?) gunship until they replaced it with true gunship markings and then Rambo. Microscale/Superscale also released decals of my slick.

And as for the Chickenhawk / Taking Fire  question - I'm sure it's a mixup on that webpage.  Taking Fire  has been criticised and is being criticized there. Chickenhawk  is there in error, except to point out a book they endorse.  I don't believe anyone question's Robert Mason's autobiographical book, which is complete with the good and the bad.  His wife has written about and is a lecturer about PTSD and Mason surely hit bottom with his drugs and jail.  Nam vets have no patience for ‘wannabes' especially not the 1/9th Cav which if I recall, was the most decorated and most feared unit within the 1^st Air Cav Div.  If the author of Taking Fire was making false claims about himself, it's no wonder that site was tearing him a new one!

My unit's website   http://home.earthlink.net/~wildmanrvn398/id15.html has photos of me and Nevada Gambler 'a century ago'.  This next page has our co. insignia that was on our shirts but not on the slicks:  http://home.earthlink.net/~wildmanrvn398/index.html  Larry ‘wildman' Gordon set up that site and is in the process of moving it to:  http://www.c227.org/ .   I greatly appreciated that UK restoration website!  Here's a fun and games one you might want to check out:  http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf  see if you can fly a helo!

This is the VN Helicopter Crew Members Association site:     http://www.vhcma.org/ they have links to most if not all, other helo web sites.  Hope these have been of some help to y'all.

clear right

Howie

skypirate1 wrote:

Nice one maddog ive got a couple of 1/72 gunships to do so wil be interested to see yours. Andy.

Okay Andy, here they are.

Here is my oldest one, my UH-1D. Mind you, the UH-1D in this photo was built over 29 years ago, and refurbished about 5 years ago with aftermarket decals. I believe the armament isn't correct here, but that is the only choice of armament they offered back then (and probably still do): 

That is the old Italeri kit from ages ago. 

This next one is another Italeri kit that is a bit more recent. Again, I went with the armament choice they gave me. Here is my UH-1C:

Then I got another UH-1C as a gift, so I decided to build it as an Australian bird:

So far, these are all that I have that are worth viewing. I have several other old ones from 27-29 years go that need some work before I can show them here without embarrassment....

I also entered a contest with a resin model accessories company (whose name I forgot) with a suggestionfor door gun accessories and armament packages for Hueys; including the Nighthawk. I asked that they be made in all the popular scales from 1/72 to 1/32. I also sent along photos and links to show what we want, many of those photos and links came from this thread. If they decide to make these then we'll all finally be able to do justice to all our Hogs!

Andy, I hope you like these. Thanks for looking 

Looking pretty good Duke.  You are correct on this one though...

As stated earlier in this thread, the US Army didn't use any D/H model gunships.  Also, the decals are for a UH-1C gunship, not a D.  

Still looks pretty cool though.  Good job on all of them.

Thanks Gino, I apopreciate the information. It's incredible too; the instruction sheet for that aftermarket decal set showed those markings going on a D model Huey too! LOL! I chose them partly for that reason, as well as because they looked good. Besides, the model was already inaccurate, so why not?

Anyway, I have another one sitting on the refurbish shelf; I'm just trying to get the nerve to try and scratchbuild a couple of M-60 mounts; and then get a couple of M-60's in 1/72 scale to mount.....

Thanks again Gino. 

Maddog

Thanks for posting the pictures they look great, i like this one

Its one of the 2 Italeri 1/72 gunships i have in my stash, this one (Big Train) is the UH-1B. The one with the 19 tube rocket pods and shark teeth decals is the 1C version (B models have those antenna mounted on the nose).

Its a fine looking model and i hope my little 1/72's come out like that. great stuff

Andy

B models have those antenna mounted on the nose...

Actually, either B or C models ()early ones) could have the nose-mounted FM homing antennas.  The external differences between B and C models are different rotors and head components, different tail profile, and different location of fuel fill points.  The antennas are not necessarily a discriminating factor.

Oh right, thanks for that Gino, does it work the same for the D/H models as i thought only the B and D hueys had them?

Andy

Thanks for clearing that up for me Gino, i thought i had found a quick way to distinguish between B & C models. any chance you can put a couple of your medevac pics on here, they would be a great addition to this thread and a treat for any huey fans who hav'nt seen them.

Thanks

Andy

...any chance you can put a couple of your medevac pics on here...

Sure, here are a couple:

The rest can be seen here.

Did you check your PMs?

  Andy,

  Got your PM... I think that would be a great idea to stick this Huey thread to the top right next to "crew topic" since it is a very popular theme and it pops up pritty often here. This way new ppl dont have to dig forum archive for hours.

  answering your question :-))

   I dont know if anybody from 68th AHC have seen my Huey...It would be cool if they did)))

   Anyway Academy C kit is really nice...even OOB

   There is a lot of possibilities to improve it. Depends on how far you wanna go...

Andy

HeavyArty wrote:

D models had the nose antennas.  H models did not, the antenni were moved to the roof as the blade and towel bar.

Now to throw a monkey wrench into it, most D models were rebuilt to H models after 1967, pitot tube on D models is on the nose and remained there after rebuild and on factory built H models it is on the roof

grandadjohn wrote:

HeavyArty wrote: D models had the nose antennas.  H models did not, the antenni were moved to the roof as the blade and towel bar. Now to throw a monkey wrench into it, most D models were rebuilt to H models after 1967, pitot tube on D models is on the nose and remained there after rebuild and on factory built H models it is on the roof

So some H models upgraded from D's kept their nose mounted pitot tube, is that right ?

Andy

skypirate1 wrote:

So some H models upgraded from D's kept their nose mounted pitot tube, is that right ?

 Yup, the antenna's were moved, but the pitot tube was left in place on D models converted into H models.  So some H models still had the nose-mounted pitot tube. 

Thanks for posting the pics Gino, pm's checked.

For everyone else check the the link Gino provided to the rest of the shots of his medevac, the detail is astounding and will serve as a great source of pictoral help and information on the right way to build a huey medevac/slick, it has served as an essential guide in building my revell UH-1H.

Thanks Gino. 

Yeap, same with M models upgraded from C models

By the way Andy and Intruder, nice build

Andy (Intruder_Base)

Thanks so much for posting the pics. 

I agree it should be pinned up the top as its a popular thread but have no idea how its done lol, there are still some great threads on here other than this one about hueys but i think, thanks to all the who have contributed, that this one has grown into the most useful.

I remember when i first joined the forum seeing the pictures of your completed "muskets" UH-1C and thinking my academy heavy hog is not coming out of the box untill i feel confident enough it can look as good as yours, needless to say its still in the box lol. sadly since then, your post has slipped down the ranks and it would be a sin to be missed by anyone interested in hueys. 

To me, yours is the ultimate benchmark in how a UH-1C should look, the best i have seen and to the rest of us who are wanting to build one, if you can get yours to look half as good as Andys "Mustang 6" your on a winner

I noticed today on returning to your original post you now have links to the build of this amazing bird (which i read with awe) is there any chance you could pop the link in your previous post so everyone else can enjoy and learn from it.

Many thanks Andy.(Intruder_Base)

Andy.

Continuing the pitot tube discussion, it should be pointed out that not all B models had the obvious twin antennae on the nose.  However, all that I have seen at least had a small nose mounted pitot tube.  Also, it is a common missconception that the particle filters seen on later C models were indicative, but the early C models lacked them and they were retrofitted to many B models as well.  Also, some B models recieved C model tail booms when theirs failed.  The only true ways to tell a B model from a C/M model that I know of are the wide chord of the C/M model rotor, the 540 rotor head of the C/M model and the position of the fuel filler cap (on the right on B's and on the left on C/M's).  The wide chord, assymetrical horizontal stabs and wider tail fin aren't 100% reliable as I mentioned above.  I hope I haven't just repeated something mentioned earlier in this thread.  This baby is turning into a beast!

   Ray
 

Ive created a monster lol,

Great to have you back Ray the thread isnt the same without your know-how ;)

All the B models i have seen even without the two main fm antenni have a small mounted pitot tube on the left side of the nose where as the C models dont, ??!!

Andy

I agree it should be pinned up the top as its a popular thread but have no idea how its done...

To get it pinned up, all you have to do is send a request to one of the moderators (Amanda Boothe is great) and ask them to pin it.  They are usually pretty receptive to it.  Good luck.

All the B models I have seen even without the two main FM antennae have a small mounted pitot tube on the left side of the nose where as the C models don't, ??!!

Yup.  As you can see from the last few posts, there was/is no one single, easily identifiable characteristic that can be used as a definitive distinction between models. 

lol Gino , great! im gonna have to start looking at technical things like rotors and tail fins lol, im gonna miss my pitot tube shortcut

Andy

I think I said something earlier about needing more pictures to back up descriptions.  Guess it's time to put my money where my mouth is.

A UH-1B from my dad's unit (190th AHC).   The slicks were Spartans and the guns were Gladiators.  I love the nose art (why hasn't anyone made a decal sheet for the 190th?).  Anyway, note there are no big paired antennae, just a small pitot on the left side.  Also, there is a towel bar and blade antennae on the roof (thanks for catching that, Gino).  Further, you can see the particle filters mentioned above on the doghouse.  For positive ID as a B model from this view notice the narrow chord rotor (note trim tabs which are missing in Italeri's 1/72 B/C/F kits), old style rotor head (what is the proper name for this style rotor, anyway?), and counterweights above the rotor head (the counterweights are below the rotorhead on A models).  Finally, you can just make out the symmetrical horizontal stabs.  By the way, this photo also shows a nice view of the wind shield that most gunships had to help protect gunners from airflow.  You can just see the crewchief's leg sticking out behind it.  Don't forget to put that little detail on your gunships.  You will also notice that the front doors were removed from this bird, a common practice in many units to allow for quick egress.  I hope this helps with the above explanations. 

  For completeness sake I should also point out that this ship is armed with the XM-21 armament system with XM-158 seven shot FFAR 2.75 rocket pods and M-134 7.62mm miniguns.  The armamant mounting system is the XM-156 universal mount standard on all later US Army HUEYs.  This photo was taken in either '68 or '69 and represents late UH-1Bs in Vietnam. 

   Ray