Hello whirlybird fans,

Welcome to the official campaign thread for the Kitmaker-wide helicopter crossover campaign. Naval helicopters, Army helicopters, Air Force helicopters, Civil helicopters, Science Fiction helicopters, whatever paint job your subject wears, it's welcome here.

Please post your campaign camaraderie and adventures here. You must post a minimum of two pictures in this thread, although as many more as you care to post are strongly encouraged. Separate build logs are also welcome, either in this forum, or in a forum on your home site. For those who wish, the Rotory Wing Forum at Aeroscale is a completely appropriate location for a build log.

A minimum of two photos must be posted in the gallery to qualify for your ribbon. The campaign runs until June 30th, 2014.

This thread will not be pinned to the top of the forum, so if you wish to keep track of it, remember to subscribe and receive e-mailed notifications of new updates.

.... and we're off!





Good luck everyone!

Mine is going to be several orders of magnitude older than that one

Although still a respectable size

With some lovely Maple Leaves to hang on it

It's going to look something like this

I'll be building a few of these little critters.


The Army had a couple of them on Kwajalein in several colorful paint schemes

I'll have to scratch build some pontoons.

You'll have to do some converting as well. That's a UH-1H, not a UH-1N that your kits are. The -N was a twin engined aircraft as opposed to the single engine -H. The nose was notably rounder as well, and the foot windows much larger.

In the following image, the Bell 205 is the UH-1H and the Bell 212 is the UH-1N (the -204 is the short fuselage A - C variant)

The US Army never flew -N model Hueys.

The Fit of this kit is approximate at best

I'm going to need the help of a friendly octopus to hold everything in place while I fiddle around with the fit, trimming, sanding and generally persuading all to stay where it's supposed to.

I'm a little late to the party.

My plan is to scratch build a fast attack chopper from this pile of pieces, built around a Bell Chopper. I'll probably go with a pusher design and a twin tail. I'm still kicking around some ideas and designs.


If that fails to fly, I'll go with my back-up plan. Dragon's 1/35 AH-6J Little Bird.

Alex, that's my plan too -- hit the parts box and make what should have been!
-Sean H

Sean,
I'm going to push the work on the spares box chopper design over the weekend. I should know if it's going to work out or not. I think my big issue is going to be the fabrication of the fuselage.

If it comes to it, I'll build the Little Bird as my primary submission. Then, I might just do a simpler attack version of the Bell H-13 as a secondary project. I figure 2-4 .50 cals and rockets for weapons. Maybe add some armor plates around the engine and cockpit areas.

That's pretty much what the US Army did with H-13s in their early gunship experiments.

Hi,
That's my mess. No box, no package. But I'll try to change it better.
Hope you accept this status. Thanks.

If my spares box didn't have a suitable fuselage to donate, I was considering going way out on that limb and using a plastic egg, after what fun the Egg Planes Campaign was. Actually, I didn't look lately, but I remember there being a chopped down HH-53 in there.
I do intend to stop short of recreating the penguins and monkeys' flying contraption from Madagascar 2!
-Sean

Jessica,
I kind of want to tweak the profile a bit so it doesn't look like a H-13 with bits added on. The biggest feature is that bubble canopy. I change that shape and it'll help alot in changing the shape as a whole. I hate to lose the pusher prop feature but that looks like it's going to be tough to pull off.

I figure to place it in the late 50s- early 60s so its armaments are limited to the 50 cals and rockets. I might try to squeeze in a 20mm cannon.

Sean,
I figure the H13 frame will work well. I can use the frame as a template to cut out plating and get away with the flat surface look. I'd love to have a curved fuselage but I think that's just beyond my skills at the moment. I use to have an old 1/40 AD-1 that would have worked well for a autogyro, using the H13's rotor assembly. I thought about using a 1/48 Bristol Gladiator or a PT Steerman for an autogyro fuselage but it just didn't look right to me.

Anyway, I'll probably do the AH-6 and see what happens after that. After that it's all gravy. Plus, I do love me some what-if subjects.

Hi all

My entry for this:

I've been very curious about that one. I'll be following this build closely

I wish they'd make a H-34 in 1/35 or even 1/32 scale. I've got a picture of one of my Great Uncles boarding one over in Korea.

I have a Revell 1/48 AH-1F in my stash that I'm going to do. I'm on a budget, so it'll be an out of the box build. I'll get started as soon as I get my camera.

Sent off for Eduard's masking, detailing and cargo seatbelts for my Gallery H-34 so might be a slight delay in starting until they arrive.

Am looking forward to seeing all these Helos, especially that big Merlin and the Shawnee.

I'm considering a CH53 in 1/87 to go along with my airport project. It really needs to get off the ground.

I broke styrene on my Little Bird last night.

Assembled the bulkhead separating the pilots from the rear compartment. And then filled in the specified holes on the floor.


And this is what they look like when combined.


It's a start. A shame Dragon didn't include the side doors. I might have gone with a civilian version. Or maybe the armed chopper from "Blue Thunder". Now that would look great on the shelf next to the old 1/32 Blue Thunder kit.

More progress on the Little Bird.

Assembled pilots' positions.


Weapons mount and the center console. I left the console off of the pilots' section to make painting easier.


And the weapons mount assembled. I left the miniguns belt feed lines off until later. They want you to bend these but I could see them breaking.


Assemblies for the tail and the rearmost interior bulkhead.


Tail assembly assembled. I left the tail rotor off for now to avoid it getting broken.


And the various sub-assemblies assembled so far.


I'm thinking about moving away from the kit's all-black color scheme. The kit has a lot of detail that is just going to be swallowed up in all that black. I might go with an aircraft in use with a federal agency like the DEA or ATF...or maybe even a private security company.

I'm in with the new KittyHawk SA 365F.

Here we go!
This is my entry for this campaign, it has a rotor and it was availabel in my stack.

That is a two birds with one stone situation

Change of plans. I'm not going to build the what-if chopper based on the Bell H-13. I got hit with a dose of inspiration and am instead going to use it as the framework for a what-if submersible....maybe steam punk. I'm still in with the Little Bird though and should be getting back to work on it soon.