1/72 C-123K Black Bat Special Ops Aircraft

That's some cool experience, John!  Ikar, the one I'm modeling was a specal ops aircraft - not a candle ship or gun ship. Their names and descriptions, and the units they were assigned to were constantly changed to confuse both the enemy and us lol.

I have A & P and Air Transport Ratings, and was a helicopter mechanic in the CalARNG.  We had CH-37's which had R-2800's.  I've also worked on R-985's and R-1340's by P & W, also managed mantenance on PT-6's and JT-15's.  The only Wright's I remember working on were the R-1820 and R1300.  On the small side the Continentals and Lycomings.  On the radials the core of the engine is always worked on by FAA certified overhaul shops so I mostly did trouble shooting and cylinder changes on them. 

It's been a long time since I saw a 123.  The lasttime was when we were heading home on our freedom bird had to stop for the night at Clark A.B. and it was parked over by a C-9.  I think the ship you atr doing was a light ship with a ton of flood lights on the bottom.  I have seen photos of the so called gunship version dthat dropped clusters from a crate placed over a whole in the floor.

By the way, John, your build has pointed out some issues and errors in the kit that I wasn't aware of, so many thanks for your info. And I didn't know you were an engine mech. What planes did you work on? Did you work on the double-wasp engines?

John, Bill,

I think you guys are on it. If the openings and the floor height are off, that would account for the difference. But you're right Bill, it does look proportionally about right and it's not something I'm gonna worry about.

Thanks to both of you for checking it out!

Russ

TheMongoose

Excellent looking floor and ribs! Really grabs your attention 

 

Thanks for the good words, Mongoose!

It's hard to tell. It sort of looks like the door to the cockpit is jut too high on the kit part.

I found a good straight on photo of that bulkhead in a 123K taken from the cargo area.

I set decimal dimensions to the kit part and to the photo.

The overall proportion of height to width is the same. The proportions of the door openings are the same and the size relative to the overall height is the same.

The major discrepancy is that the door and the two lower openings are too high in the kit part. Which means the flight deck is too high in the kit fuselage.

Of course that can't be fixed, but the overall shape looks right. Easiest fix if you cared would be to lower the top of the door by about what you marked.

Those two lower openings sit just about at the cargo floor level in the actual a/c, but oh well.

Bill

Excellent looking floor and ribs! Really grabs your attention 

Nice work.  The curve of the top of the fuselage on the one I built looks about right, maybe part of the issue may be the height of the floor.

Just a quick update - I completed the cargo deck flooring and began adding ribbing detail to the sides of the fuselage.

Cheers!

I came across an interesting discrepancy between the Roden C-123 kit and the pictures I have of actual aircraft. The kit fuselage appears to be about 2-3 scale feet shorter at the top of the forward bulkhead as compared to the real aircraft. This would mean the upper curve of the kit fuselage is narrower and shorter than it should be.

Is the taller fuselage actually a modification in later versions? I haven't found any pictures that show the shorter bulkhead. In any case, it's not a problem - unless you're a fanatic about C-123s

Hello, All,

Hope you are all safe and healthy!

I've had more time to build lately, so I started back working on the IP. I had to trim my new glare shield to match the curve of the front windshield using the cuss and fit method Luckily it is only 0.5 mm thick, so it was a lot easier to work with. The picture below shows how it looks so far. The actual glare shield had a much more intricate shape but without accurate measurements, it would be extremely difficult to replicate.

I built a steering wheel assembly to place under the left edge of the IP. The kit control yokes were too small in diameter and also too long, so I made new ones and added some thumb switches.

 I painted the seats and added the seat belts. Then I tackled the center console. The one that comes with the kit is too high and the overall detail is pretty poor, so I cut it down and added some detail, and I replaced the throttle cluster with a scratch built one.

I scratch built the small avionics rack that was located between the copilot's seat and the right fuselage (barely seen on the left in the photos below. Then I added some insulation, the cabin braces, oxygen bottles and some miscellaneous piping and cabling.

I added some detail in the cheek compartments since it can be seen through the nose windows.

Cheers and thanks for looking!

Been very busy lately but I managed to do a few things, like upgrade the crew seats. The kit seats are nicely done out of the box but there are a some things that needed fixing. The headrests were too small so I scratched some new ones. And the armrests were too thick so I trimmed them down a bit and shaped them more accurately. I posed the inside armrests in the up position, as they normally were for easier access when the aircraft was on the ground.

The pictures below show the seats prior to painting, which I'll have to do later. I'll then add the seat belts and the panels behind the headrests.

Cheers and many thanks for looking!

Thanks, John! Glad to know you're keeping an eye on me

Good work, Russ.  Beware, I'm watching

The kit nose wheel well detail is not quite correct or complete but that's not a big deal, especially since it's going to be hard to see any detail in there. However, I have to feed my urge to mess with things so I added some braces and supports that weren't included in the kit and I kludged together some motors and hydraulic pumps. I stopped short of adding wiring harnesses and hydraulic lines but I may add them later.

Below are front and back views of the nose wheel well.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Russ

Thanks, Trey! Very much appreciated!

Thanks, Pawel! Have a great day and a Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Russ

That IP looks tasty!!! Great to see You back at it Russ!

Hello Russ!

Cool work, as always! Looking forward to the next updates - good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

Hi, All. Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I should be doing the nose gear area first, but I just had do something with the cockpit. So when no one was looking, I attacked the instrument panel (IP).

Overall, the kit cockpit detail is pretty good. However, they left off the steering wheel assembly which would sit just under the left end of the IP. I discovered that  the kit IP is about 3 mm too short overall to accommodate it, so I replaced the kit IP with a longer scratch built panel as shown below. I pieced together a scale picture of the IP from a number of different photos and edited out the two control wheels and the throttle controls. The colors look a little weird because the panel was photographed under florescent lights.

The steering wheel assembly still wouldn't fit comfortably because the rudder pedal assemblies were a bit too wide, so I trimmed them back a little and moved them inward. Now the steering box will have room to reside under the IP.

 Next, the shape of the sun shield on top of the IP was not quite right. It slopes pretty severely from the front edge toward the rear, but all the photos I've been able to find indicate that the top cover was fairly level, so I made a scratch built version, as shown below.

Ok - back to the nose gear area...... maybe....

Ahh... my mistake! You were talking WX = tail code; I was thinking WX = weather. You have every reason to be proud of your father, Mike - he had an impressive career. Thanks for the background!

Cheers,

Russ

Striker8241

 

 

Blackpowder1956

My father Carleton Johnson LtCol USAF retired flew C-123's out of Phan Rang AFB, South Vietnam 1967-68. He mainly flew food, ammo and supplies. Occasionally flew troops as well as prisoners. He was involved in the air support of the Marines at Khe Sanh. I too have this Roden kit in my stash to build as one of the WX birds Dad flew. - Mike

 

 

 

 

Welcome, Mike!

Seems like I've seen something about your father flying C-123s that was posted online. I'll try to find it again. If he flew into Khe Sanh, he was one brave dude! Did he by chance fly WX birds out of Keesler AFB?

Cheers,

Russ

 Russ he was a hard charger! They lost an engine on approach to the drop zone and had a planeload of ammo on board. Anyways they delivered the goods and he eventually received the Bronze Star with Valor. He never was at Keesler that I know of. Dad was a C-118 pilot in Weisbaden when his best friend John "Jack" Goeglein got orders to go to Jolly Green helo school as they needed helo pilots. Dad volunteered for SE Asia as a 123 pilot (he had time in 123's I believe at Mather AFB (was training in twins T-29s and 123's. Anyways Jack got shot down and KIA over the Laotian border trying to rescue  a jet pilot. I have tons of photos of him at hole in the wall airstrips. Fast forward about 15 years, I was a LT, US Navy  Medical Officer at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico. There was a Maine Air National Guard Unit flying several C-123's one of which had WX on the tail. I stopped by the flight line and talked to a Pilot. The following afternoon they took me up in the WX bird and I got to see them drop the ramp and commence parachute ops over our base. Sadly Dad died in 2002 of the same type of brain tumor that killed John Mccain. Dad had a career that spanned the latter half of the Korean War, flew fighters for the first ten years (F-86s in Korea) and then multi engine prop C-54s, C-118s, multi engine jet C-9s and C-141s. After retirement until his death at age 70 he worked as a civilian engineer at AFRL at Wright Patt.The WX bird he flew was in SE Asia.

jmoran426

Hello, John! I've got the Roden 1/72 C-123 as well, and was planning on rendering it as a K model. I'm planning to do the ones that flew spotter missions over the HoChiMihn trail, looking for trucks. The stories I've heard were that there was a center-line hatch in the floor of the aircraft where an airman equipped with night-vision equipment would lie prone on the deck and look through the hatch-hole to spot movement on the trail. When they found something, night-prowling A-1 Skyraiders would come in to take them out. BTW, where will you be getting your jet pods to make it a "K". I've got an AC-119 that has the jet assist pods I was thinking of recasting copies of, but if you've got a better source, I'd love to hear about it.

 

Hello, jmoran426 and welcome!

That's a good question, since those little rascals are hard to come by. Mine are coming from a Roden C-123K Black Spot kit that I bought just for the engines and as a source of spare parts for this build.

Cheers,

Russ