HH-43 Huskie Testors 1/32

[smokeriderdon]

OK, this is all you peoples fault. I have an A-6 languishing and you guys got my helo side going. :p I'm gonna do this one and I am done with this. I swear.

I picked this one because it is different. I like doing different stuff. Not that there is a darned thing wrong with a good Huey build. The first two pics are ones my dad took in Nam at Tan Son Nhut AB in 67. Im gonna try to do the paint as close to what I can tell from those pics. And really, I see no other markings on them aside from the stars and bars. But here is some info on the Huskie courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Kaman HH-43 Huskie was a helicopter with intermeshing rotors used by the United States Air Force, the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps from the 1950s until the 1970s. It was primarily used for aircraft firefighting and rescue in the close vicinity of air bases, but was later used as a short range overland search and rescue aircraft during the Vietnam War.

Under the aircraft designation system used by the U.S. Navy pre-1962, Navy and U.S. Marine Corps versions were originally designated as the HTK, HOK or HUK, for their use as training, observation or utility aircraft, respectively.

In 1947 Anton Flettner, a German aviation engineer, was brought to New York in the United States as part of Operation Paperclip.[1] He was the developer of Germany's Flettner Fl 282 "Kolibri" (Hummingbird), a helicopter employing the "synchropter" principle of intermeshing rotors, a unique design principle that dispenses with the need for a tail rotor. Flettner settled in the US and became the chief designer of the Kaman company, where he designed new helicopters using the synchropter principle.

The Huskie had an unusual intermeshing contra-rotating twin-rotor arrangement with control effected by servo-flaps. The first prototype flew in 1947 and was adopted by the US Navy with a piston engine. In 1954, in an experiment by Kaman and the US Navy, one HTK-1 was modified and flew with its piston engine replaced by two turbine engines, becoming the world's first twin-turbine helicopter. The Air Force later adopted a version with one turboshaft engine: HH-43B and F versions.

This aircraft saw use in the Vietnam War with several detachments of the Pacific Air Rescue Center, the 33d, 36th, 37th, and 38th Air Rescue Squadrons, and the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, where the aircraft was known by its call sign moniker "Pedro". During the war, the two-pilot HH-43 Huskie flew more rescue missions than all other aircraft combined, because of its unique hovering capability. The HH-43 was eventually replaced by newer aircraft in the early 1970s.

On the back of the pics my father noted that the H-3 guys called it Brand X.

[Johno]

I love the odd looking old choppers. Can't wait to see how it comes out.

[RangerNeil]

This should be an interesting one to watch. A lovely choice of type.

I always wondered why Kaman went for the two seperate rotor shafts instead of the common rotor shaft that Kamov used - and uses to this date (and about the interesting closeness of Kaman and Kamov... )

[Tomcat64]

Thanks for piling in again Don

And another 'copter from the time when the manufacturers were still trying to figure out what they should really look like - looking forward to seeing you bring this one together

[digger303]

Nice one and a descendant of my build. I like that seeing what became of the design.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Look up ‘different’ In the dictionary and you see a pic of this thing
What a wild aircraft
Good luck on the build

[smokeriderdon]

OK, so I got to work on it. Got the cockpit area done..







So, that went swimmingly. Put that assembly into the fuselage half. Closed it up. Put together the rotor shaft area. All went together really well considering that the original molds were from Hawk. In 1961!



Yes, it needs some sanding and putty, BUT, 1961 molds. You cant really complain about the minor fit issues.

So, here is the thing. The rotors spin. There is a gear assembly that you have to put together precisely. It seemed awful hefty to me, but hey, 1961 ideas. LOL But here is the problem...





Clearly visible from back and side. AND I need to address the floor being open on the bottom thing. Now, the reason I know this is a 1961 Hawk kit is I checked the lineage on ScaleMates. I took a closer look at the pic of the original box and lo and behold, IT WAS MOTORIZED. Thats the reason for the overly hefty gears. And for the one shaft extending so far below the gear. So now I need to decide if I want to try to motorize it or just kind of wall off the gears so they arent seen. Never motorized anything. Hmmmmm.....

[Kevthemodeller]

Very interesting helo, rarely seen and just one of the many designs rolled out in the 50s and 60s

Good luck with the build mate

[smokeriderdon]

So, I had to put down my fuzzy baby girl Lexi last Thursday, so I really wasnt in the mood to do much by way of modelling for a few days. Did do some stuff last night and the night before.




Got the "glass" on and in the doors. Let it set for 24 hours, masked attached the doors and sprayed flat black. Still wet in the pic. I will check seams tonight and work towards the camo.

[jmurphy18]

Looking cool here Don. Nice progress.

Bummer on your Lexi girl

[Twokidsnosleep]

Oh dude, so sorry to hear about the pup
Those are hard days

[digger303]

Oh dude, so sorry to hear about the pup
Those are hard days

Loss is never easy

[smokeriderdon]

Thank you gentlemen for the kind words.

On with the build. Sprayed the bottom light gray. Then taped off the border area and sprayed the tan last night. Tonight I did the blue tac thing and sprayed dark green. My own mix of standard dark green plus some black. That color seems to have varied a lot in theater. Generally darker than the color straight up. Next session, more blue tac then med green.





While I was letting paint dry, I worked on the rotors. I noticed that one of the four brackets that holds the blades on is MIA. So i am going to have cast one. Yay. Should be fairly easy as it is a fairly flat piece. Since the rotors are the very last thing I do in a copter, I will wait until then to detail that part.

[smokeriderdon]

OK, so some touching up and fixing a couple things, but camo essentially done. I have looked at the pics with a magnifying glass, and I absolutely do not see any markings except for the stars and bars. No U.S. AIR FORCE band on the tail, nothing. So I will likely only do that.

[Kevthemodeller]

Great looking cammo

[RangerNeil]

Looks great. Looking forwards to seeing the finished job..

[smokeriderdon]

OK, so I got more done. I went ahead and clipped the rod extending from the one gear. That was part of the motorizing apparatus I am sure. Not needed. Made a "ceiling" from plasticard. Doing the same for the overhang in the back and the missing section of the floor.





I got to work on the decals. The bars and stars in the kit are WAY too big for what you see in the pics. I grabbed four from an aftermarket sheet that are the size they appear to be in the pics. I am going to go with just those. I tried the U.S. AIR FORCE banner on the tail. The lettering is blue, which looks totally wrong. And the decal disintegrated in a couple spots. So minimalist it is.

Also, I cast the part that was missing. There are supposed to be four of these as part of the rotor assembly. As you can see, only 3 are here. God only knows what happened to the fourth. I took some clay, pressed one of them down in it and pored some two part resin in there. Peeled it out of the clay, cleaned it up and poof! Oughta work.

[smokeriderdon]

And in the interest of learning, I found out what the one in flight is carrying under it. It is a Fire Suppression Kit. Further info here...

http://rotorheadsrus.us/documents/541.html

[Meliodas2019]

nice job, paint looks great

[smokeriderdon]

nice job, paint looks great

Thank you sir!

Almost done. Just had to throw the rotors on and see if they actually worked and they do. Which is great because I was honestly having a hell of a time visualizing how they did not hit each other.

[smokeriderdon]

So last update as she is finished. In the two reference pics, you can see they do not have the rear clamshell doors on. Simply a cargo net. I imagine that was because it was a tad warm in Nam and I doubt Huskies had AC. Thats my theory anyway. So, as there are no after market cargo nets out there that I know of, I made my own. I cut strips of lead sheet at a semi uniform width.



Using a ruler, I laid them out in relatively even intervals. This is all guesswork on my part as to whether its the right size and dimensions for scale. Looks right to me, so thats it.





At this point, I glued them all together then cut the excess and sprayed it dark green. Then cut it fit the back of the copter and wallah!



After that, I attached the landing gears and doors and winch. Painted the exhaust with Alclad and went over it with pastel to dull it down, dropped the props on and done. Check the reveal thread!

Thanks for following. Hopefully you all enjoyed it as much as I did.