French a/c group build 2012-13

Wow, I did not realize there were so many variants of that helicopter!

Thanks, Budd

Budd , I could go for a week talking non stop about the H-34 and it's variants . What I posted is just a small sample of the venerable Sikorsky S-58 !

VanceCrozier

John - can't right-click? You could do the old "print screen" trick, then paste the resulting image into a photo-editing program & crop it from there (ideally), or paste it into a doc file.  Let me know if you have trouble with it.

Well Vance , I was able to learn something new tonight . I showed my younger brother your post about using the "print screen" trick and he knew straight away what you were talking about and then showed me exactly how to go about saving those awesome H-34A Pirate pic's . I had to write down step by step procedures on what to click and so forth and after a few go's on copying each pic , I soon got the hang of it ...

Helo H-34

Budd , I could go for a week talking non stop about the H-34 and it's variants . What I posted is just a small sample of the venerable Sikorsky S-58 !

VanceCrozier

John - can't right-click? You could do the old "print screen" trick, then paste the resulting image into a photo-editing program & crop it from there (ideally), or paste it into a doc file.  Let me know if you have trouble with it.

 

Well Vance , I was able to learn something new tonight . I showed my younger brother your post about using the "print screen" trick and he knew straight away what you were talking about and then showed me exactly how to go about saving those awesome H-34A Pirate pic's . I had to write down step by step procedures on what to click and so forth and after a few go's on copying each pic , I soon got the hang of it ...

A big thank you to my brother Tim and a 'merci to you grand leader Vance "

 

au revoir .

 

John (jean)

pas de problème, Jean!

Bonjour everyone ;

I was looking through the spares boxes today to see if I had some soldiers to use around the Noratlas and helicopter builds . I have plenty of WWII figures and some more modern ones but I wanted something that would suit the French Algerian War theme I'm going with and I found these guy's

I can't find the original box they came in but do you guy's think they look like French cammando's

John .

Not much progress to show on my Mirage, I have just been filling and sanding to get the seams around the air intakes neat and re-scribing the lost detail.

Theuns

Sacre bleu, I see berets!! John, they'd be convincing to me so long as the colours are correct. What about the rifles? (I'm no French Commando Expert by any means...)  I got some work done on the MS.406 this weekend, will have some pictures tomorrow.

There seems to be a few different types of hats worn by French soldiers/commando's ; I found these pic's on the net , which appear to be from the Algerian conflict

I ordered a book from Amazon , 'Algerian War 1954-1962' , Men at Arms series ; I hoping there will be some colour artwork pic's or perhaps photo's of the camo unifroms worn by the French .

John .

Alright, dove into my first contribution here: Heller's 1/72 MS.406...

Small kit, low parts count, good exterior details, but...

ZERO internal detail. Just stubs for the pilot's generic seat to sit on. (I shaved the stubs off to make way for scratch-built interior details)

The seat? I assume this seat makes an appearance in all sorts of kits from that year? And no, I have no idea why my fingers are so red-pink here.

The shape of the upper portion of that seat is fine, started with this as a base fr the interior work.

Instrument panel work

Paused here for pics, more to come.

Vance:

Nice scratch building details.

Hans von Hammer would be proud of you.

Sprue-ce Goose

Vance:

Nice scratch building details.

Hans von Hammer would be proud of you.

lol, thanks Goose. The details are not completely accurate of course, but they are better than nothing!

That's really great work there Vance , nice going on scratch building the extra cockpit detail ...

I have most of the Mach 2 Alouette II put together along with the M8 Greyhound and WC-51 truck

The Alouette has been quite a difficult build with more super glue than hobby glue used through out .

The cockpit tub kept falling off the frame assembly , mostly because it sits precariously on one lower cross member frame piece . Looking at the instructions I think next time it would be better to fit the lower cockpit bottom section to the frame section first and then add the cockpit interior pieces along with the rear frame/tail boom section .

I built my cockpit tub as a seperate assembly but as I mentioned getting it to stay in place was extremely frustrating . I just need to touch up the tail rotor , I thought it was red and white stripes but after looking at other finished Alouette II models on the net , it should be yellow and red stripes . I'm thinking of building a second Alouette II this time for the French Navy with the four wheels fitted and I should replace the cockpit seats or at least file the down a little , their too big and almost hit the rear seat .

Anyway hopfully finished pic's of these three builds in the next few day's .

John .

Ahhh - there is always something that can be done differently "next time" John, you're making good progress though.  You'll soon be on to your commandos.

Yeah Vance ;

There's lot's of things I would do differently with the next Alouette II build . My tail boom was a 'just glue it and hope for the best affair' , the landing skids have slight kinks in their length but I guess it's just experiance . Build one and work out the issue's so the next one will be a lot easier .

While searching the net last night I saw an artist profile image of an Alouette III that appears to have been used late in the Algerian War 1961-62

The French seemed to use those AS-11 and SS-11 missile's but I don't remember seeing any in 1/72 scale , in any case , I'm now thinking it might be a bit more of an enjoyable build if I went with a 1/72 Heller Alouette III helicopter

Painted olive green for the French Army it should accompany the Alouette II nicely .

Those Airwaves rocket tubes for the H-34A Pirate arrived late yesterday , so I'll try and make a start on the H-34 as well and give those commando's a base coat of Gunze H-81 khaki .

John .

Something else I discovered last night while searching the net was the inside colour of the French H-34 cockpit and cabin area

The walls appear to be interior green , similar to Gunze H-58 . As well as the cockpit .

The cabin floor is probably a metalic grey finish and I'll go with that .

HA! Love the big toothy grin on that one!

Another pic of lifted off the net seems to show some French soldiers wearing beret's with a French H-34A in the background ;

The web site is called French Wings over Algeria . There's some really great aircraft reference pic's !

John .

Saw some new stock Heller kits at Al's Hobby in Elmhurst, Il over the weekend.

An Al's employee told me some kits are again being imported into the USA.

Good news for the BIG FRENCH GROUPIES among us.

Great works again helo 

Good progres Vance, the heller ms-406 is the same mold i have with the smer box, just yesterday night i dissassembled mine to buit it better :)

On the nieuport some work, primede lots of pieces but no pics and finished the engine

hmmm - I know I did a lot of fiddlybit work, this is the only pic I took?? Fuselage halves glued together, seat cushion installed (real leather!) belts painted & cut (they look kinda thick in this picture though?) and lots of test-fitting of the cockpit floor. Still trying to decide if I want to offset the control surfaces etc on this one. May try opening the canopy as well - this one is a slider I believe??

Vance has agreed (Thanks Vance) that I can chime in with the 1/72 Italeri F4U-7 that I am also building for the African GB. It will be in French markings with Suez Crisis stripes.

Here are some photos of it so far. I have since pulled the engine out of it and will replace it with a detailed resin one. I'll have to cut the cowl to fit it in.

Hopefully it will measure up to some of the other models in this GB.

Cheers

Tony

Great work on the corsair cockpit!! i suspect there some aftermarket on it

Correct BSY, well spotted. AM belts and panel, the rest is either kit or scratch.

Cheers

Tony

Here's some more progress on the Corsair.  I've cut open the cowl and will put the Pavla resin engine in to replace the kit item.

Cheers

Tony

Front page must not have been updated. I thought you were building a mirage? Oh well. Looks good so far.

Managed to sort my problems with the bugatti.

Wiped it with bleach then lighter fluid. Light coating of primer. Found it was full of pinholes from where there were bubbles in the resin while it was being poured. Filled those by putting some filler on my fingertip and massaging it into the resin, then wiping any excess off with lighter fluid.

I have to pop the exhaust stacks off and reshape them, they're completely wrong and way too big and bulbous.

After that i have a fair amount of work to do in the cockpit. Alot of detail is missing thats quite obvious, and the edges have all been moulded too hard. It was lined in leather, so i need to soften things up a bit.

I will get around to the Mirage eventually. I added the Corsair a week or two back as I was building it in French colours anyway.

Nice work on the Bugatti, I've got a few Bugatti kits in my car stash.

Cheers

Tony

Ha thanks. Its easy when most of the kit comes as a solid lump of resin.

Excellent WIP on the Bugatti Scorp .

Hopfully the major issue's with the kit are behind you and you can coast from here onwards .

Tony the F4U-7 is looking sharp ...Great Stuff .

John .

ahhh - the ol' "lighter fluid massage". Thought you could only get those in Thailand?

Love the shape of that Bugatti. Any idea what the intakes on the tail surfaces are for??  Think I'll have a chance to get some more done on the MS.406 tonight. Once I get her closed up the pace should pick up.

The intakes on the tail are for the radiator. Its a diffuser that slows the air down enough to effectively draw heat off the radiator. The air then flows out the slots on the trailing edge of the main wing.

...and then that turns the elevator into a "blown" control surface - wow!