Vietnam Era A.T.C.H. (Armoured Troop Carrier Heli)

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I had been involved in a build of the Tamiya 1/350 USS Enterprise for quite a while, and ended up putting it on the shelf of doom when I got to the airwings. The so small and the tiny decals got the better of me and my fingers and eyes, so I put her aside wondering what to do next.
I had been reading a book called 'Brown Water, Gren Berets' about the riverine patrol boats during the Vietnam War, and was intrigued about the landing craft converted to helicopter carriers.
Googling this turned up plans by 'Glynn Guest' for a simple build of this craft.
As it appeared to be quite simple, I purchased a back copy of 'Model Boats' magazine that had the plans included within.
I purchased a 'Kitty Hawk' 1/48 Huey kit and a balsa pack from my local Boyes store, and set about the build intending to build as per the plan.
As we all tend to do, it progressed from the basic build to adding some a little detail, hen a little more and so on.
From the start I had decided to clad the balsa frame/structure with plasticard, to make it easier to add detail to and paint.
The attached photo's are of the build as it progressed from simple to (what have I got myself into)

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Apologies as I appear to have put this on the wrong forum.

[boatman]

HI Gregg will you ever built the enterprise then ?
chris

[spanner570]

Apologies as I appear to have put this on the wrong forum.

Sorted Gregg.

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HI Gregg will you ever built the enterprise then ?
chris

I have just started another thread on here with the build to where I'm up to.
I will get back to her soon, but are currently in the middle of a scratch build for the residents of the care facility my disabled wife and I live in.

Born and bred in Hull, we have a long history with the fishing industry that sadly is no more.
Several of the residents and their families are ex trawlermen, who only have their memories of the life they loved.
I had been approached by the management who have arranged a a local historian, to visit us in July to give a show of films etc of our lost industry.
Knowing I like to model, they have asked if I will build a model of the 'Arctic Corsair' our local living history museum berthed on the River Hull.
Always up for a challenge I thought why not, little knowing what a challenge it would turn out to be.
Not only having to deal with this lockdown (meaning having to get materials on line), and the 'Corsair' having been put into dry dock and not being accessible, I had to resort to googling photo's of her.
A fellow modeller provided me with copies of the actual builders plans so I thought, great I can do this.
I had been working on the build for about 5 weeks when I was told there was a video made on board her before she dry docked.
I ended up back to square one, as the video showed many modifications from the original construction, that were carried out by the crew to make their work easier.
So to answer your original question, yes I will complete the big 'E' after this build.

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Sorted Gregg.

Thank you.

[Neil Merryweather]

Looking forward to seeing this progress, Gregg

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Next up was to sort the mechanical internals and make a flight deck, Ramp and anti-RPG bars.
The weapons are wooden dowel wrapped in plasticard with brass barrels.

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The Kitty Hawk Huey is a really good kit, however I wanted working rotors and a suitable crew to fill out the deck.
Converting the kit engine/gearbox to hide the miniature electric motor/gearbox, wasn't as difficult as I imagined as it fitted straight in without any work.
I made a bearing for the main shaft from carbon fibre tube, and used carbon fibre rod for the main shaft. The power cable I ran through a length of shrink wrap tube exiting the fuselage where the Huey filler pipe would be.
The crew were modified from a USAF aircraft crew set, by cutting off arms and legs and re-positioning them as required.

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As I always like to make my models appear to be well used, I added various bits to the flight deck and deck areas.
The mine sweeping gear on the stern, was made from plastic square sections.
The crew modified as mentioned before were placed in various poses, and various bits of equipment added.
The tarps are made from tissue soaked in PVA mixed with acrylic paint, rolled and put in the microwave to dry (I'm very impatient)
The netting is medical gauze, similarly soaked as above, then tied with cord, and the assorted boxes etc, are all made from plasticard.
Ballast tests were carried out in my test tank, and because of the Huey tail overhang, an uneven amount of ballast port & starboard
was needed to overcome the pronounced list.
When taken to my local club lake it was immediately obvious that this craft is a calm, non windy day boat.
I had achieved what I had set out to do and she has now moved on to a new owner.

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Just a short video one of the club members took on her maiden day.

https://www.facebook.com/641560600018962

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Sorted Gregg.

Looking forward to seeing this progress, Gregg

Thank you, update coming soon.