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Sikorsky S-61N G-BEWL


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Oh, we like this one.  The noise is identical (that start-up howl), even if to my eyes it does seem to have fat sponsons and a big nose!  (And what's with that pitot head on top of the rotor head malarkey?)

 

However, winching with the winch about 25 feet nearer the pilot than in a Sea King must be a good idea!

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Today I (more or less) finished off the Hurricane I'd been chucking together so that I could crack on with the '61 without too much distraction. My wife however decided that my modelling room really needed a tidy up and set too doing so. It's taken a while but now it looks much better.

 

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Ooh that's awful

 

my wife keeps trying to get me out of the way so she can wreak havoc on my little room at the back of the house

 

I shudder at her blandishments and manage to say we'll do it mañana, promise...

 

She will prevail, no doubt but...

 

Actually, that looks nice

 

:thumbsup:

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On 14/12/2016 at 6:35 PM, SovereignHobbies said:

I'm not convinced many will be very interested in my next build but I like posting these to keep myself going.

I am, my grandfather worked for BEA, BAH and BIH, but at the other extreme in the UK, on the Scillies.

The S-61N was a huge source of pride for him and fondness for the type inevitably rubbed off on me.

In fact my first ever memory was looking at the huge red float out of the cabin window as we rattled between Penzance and St Mary's.

Loved watching the first morning 'damp' starts!

 

The service also suffered it's unfair share of tragedy when it lost G-BEON with the loss of 19 passengers and crew.  Will remember that day like yesterday.

However the S-61N rightfully has a great safety reputation in the UK, and there was uproar followed by sadness when the Penzance heliport was sold off to make way for another supermarket.

 

I'm still amazed that the S-61 has never been issued as a complete mainstream kit.

 

Just one little thing though, the S-61L still has the 'boat' hull, just lacks the float/sponsons

 

I've never attempted this conversion so will watch with great interest, looks like a superb build and work so far.

Edited by 71chally
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Well, now you're going to have to get used to being able to see where all your stuff is, at least until you make it all untidy again :D

 

Bad luck with the etch mate. I once ordered a set in completely the wrong scale, and was too embarrassed to admit my mistake so I quietly ordered another set in the correct scale from another retailer. Don't tell anyone. :blush:

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

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4 minutes ago, 71chally said:

I am, my grandfather worked for BEA, BAH and BIH, but at the other extreme in the UK, on the Scillies.

The S-61N was a huge source of pride for him and fondness for the type inevitably rubbed off on me.

In fact my first ever memory was looking at the huge red float out of the cabin window as we rattled between Penzance and St Mary's.

 

The service also suffered it's unfair share of tragedy when it lost G-BEON with the loss of 19 passengers and crew.  Will remember that day like yesterday.

However the S-61N rightfully has a great safety reputation in the UK, and there was uproar followed by sadness when the Penzance heliport was sold off to make way for another supermarket.

 

I'm still amazed that the S-61 has never been issued as a complete mainstream kit.

 

Just one little thing though, the S-61L still has the 'boat' hull, just lacks the float/sponsons

 

I've never attempted this conversion so will watch with great interest, looks like a superb build and work so far.

 

 

Hmm was the baggage door external on the L then? IIRC G-BEON was an NM rather than an N? (For the benefit of the unfamiliar the NM was an L converted to an N with sponsons). He seemed to remember there not being the hatch on the cabin floor.

 

The '61 (nobody actually said "S-61N" round here - it was just a "sixty one") seemed to be a helicopter that just worked. It wasn't that fast or especially powerful. BIH ended up not filling all the seats due to various performance penalties in their latter days I seem to remember. It just worked though. Except the windscreen wiper motors though. My dad insisted they were Sikorsky's practical joke - carefully select a naff motor that wouldn't last 5 minutes and suspend it on a string from the factory roof, then build a helicopter around it. He said the wiper motors were always dying and they were a total pig to get at. Otherwise he liked it though, certainly more than the Puma family which he has never seemed to care much for.

10 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

Well, now you're going to have to get used to being able to see where all your stuff is, at least until you make it all untidy again :D

 

Bad luck with the etch mate. I once ordered a set in completely the wrong scale, and was too embarrassed to admit my mistake so I quietly ordered another set in the correct scale from another retailer. Don't tell anyone. :blush:

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

 

That's exactly what I was planning to do 😂

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I thought that 'EB was the only NM (at least with BA), and it was indeed a converted L.

Because of that it had the extra baggage compartments, one standard passenger door situated behind the stb'd cockpit bulkhead instead of the larger cargo/SAR door, this allowed for 32 (instead of 28) passenger seats.  Made it ideal for the fare paying passenger run, and along with 'NL, was my Grandfathers favourite airframe.

G-BEON was a standard N, and I believe was used on the route while 'EB was in on maintenance.

 

We never knew it as anything other than S-61 either, and certainly NOT a Sea King!

I must admit I have to differ from FAAWAFU here (oh gawd!), to my ears at least the S-61 sounded quite different to Westland Sea Kings, one way you could tell them apart when they did PDs at st Mawgan was by the noise.

 

The Scilly 61s were always well loaded and utilised, apart from deepest off season, but even then small freight (usually flowers) filled the spaces.

Edited by 71chally
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We found this last night tidying the modelling room - maybe others have them too? I don't know why I kept it but it was a topical find!

c1635555-33f2-48e5-800a-e8dce4eeb596.jpg

 

Back to the 61 ...

 

Whirlybird supply a piece of plasticard and a nice template for the cabin floor and aft bulkhead on the destructions. There's something useful on the otherside so I marked the template onto the plasticard by poking through the outline with a scalpel tip, then joined the dots afterwards. I used to do this building r/c models where most of the plan had to be transferred to balsa or ply and cut out.

 

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I left the floor ever so slightly oversize (as it's easier to sand down to size than to sand up to size) and sure enough, it held the back end open ...

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... but was a decent fit on the parallel sides forward

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So I chamfered the edges to see if that helped which it did, a little

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But it turns out that when trimmed down until the fuselage just closes and no more, that Whirlybird's template is absolutely bang on (at least for the exact amount I sanded the mating surfaces of the resin fuselage!

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I untaped the fuselage to turn my attention to the aft bulkhead, then promptly realised I was an idiot and put it back together. This time, I drew reference marks on the floor and in the fuselage door openings so I could replicate the position of the floor fore-aft in one fuselage half (to thus position the aft bulkhead)

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The aft bulkhead is not a good fit

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To be honest it's probably my cutting. I could make another dozen of these and they'd all be a poor fit, so I accepted long ago that this particular skill is one I don't possess, so I proceeded to cheat but mashing up some Milliput to squish in behind the bulkhead and close up the fuselage to mould it.

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Once it's cured, I'll separate the fuselage halves and clean up the forward face of the bulkhead that might be visible once all assembled.

 

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That seemed to work :huh:

 

You can *just* see it through the back window

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Next up before committing to adhesives is the cockpit floor and bulkhead. I can't go too far here before the PE arrives and I decide what to do with the instrument panel (I have no CAD drawing skills with which to draw a correct panel to etch myself) but I can see how the resin parts fit


The bulkhead was a bit too thick for the slots in the floor, but this was very easy to correct by sanding the back face of the bulkhead until it did fit

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I now need to find myself a reference photo because it definitely doesn't look like this through the cargo door!

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I also decided to have a quick look at how the cockpit glazing from the Revell donor kit fits. It doesn't, well, not quite anyway. I'm going to get something to eat and watch something on TV whilst I ponder this:

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Lesson from yesterday - be gentle, it's resin. I cracked the fuselage :rolleyes:

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After fixing the above with thin CA I set about sorting the step in to the cockpit. Reference photos showed pretty much what was there, but with a kickboard so that's what I added:

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And this is the result. When it's properly hardened up I'll sand it down a tickle until flush with the cockpit floor

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I marked out the cabin floor in accordance with the template provided in the Whirlybird S-61N Mk.II airliner seat set, and scribed the baggage hold hatch

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And set about with the seat which is most different from the seats provided in the set which is the very back row. This seat is wedged in between the fuselage sides and has a different base to the rest, and different supports accordingly:

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I made a new base from scrap plasticard

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... and used the seat backs from the resin seats

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And lastly fashioned new supports from brass tube

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Guests have now arrived for lunch and are talking nonsense downstairs, so I'd best go and act all Christmassy. Hooray.

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On 16/12/2016 at 9:21 PM, 71chally said:

I must admit I have to differ from FAAWAFU here (oh gawd!), to my ears at least the S-61 sounded quite different to Westland Sea Kings, one way you could tell them apart when they did PDs at st Mawgan was by the noise.

 

When flying you are right - probably something as simple as the 5-bladed vs 6-bladed tail rotor; the TR makes a large contribution to the sound of a helo (think Gazelle, Lynx, Sea King...).  But the howl of a Gnome / T58 winding up to idle is unmistakable; you can almost smell the AVCAT!

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Nice to see this being done, James.  I was lucky enough to be able to have a really close look at one of the Irish Coast Guard S-61s (but not lucky enough to go flying in it :(), and have one of those expensive Hasegawa Sea Kings set aside to have a go at the conversion in 1/48 (which is of course the prince of scales ;)). 

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Sadly no, or I'd have stuck with the scale I'm best at. I've been aware of this conversion  in 1/72 for many years and have held out hoping/assuming one would appear in 1/48. Thus far it hasn't so I'm dipping in to fiddly scale for this :)

 

If one does appear (which would be just my luck), I'd definitely consider doing another in another scheme. 

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Just a little update. I have made a start on the passenger seats. These are a bit of a chore to be honest. The photo etched brass feels like it would be better described as plate rather than sheet. It's tough to cut the parts free from the frets and a lot of clamping pressure is needed from sturdy tweezers to bend them.

 

Despite that, I think they look quite good, and what that thick brass gets you is a set of pretty sturdy seats with straight legs rather than wavy ones!

 

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That's one fret used up. I have many more to make, but I've got other things to do so that will do for tonight.

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On 12/19/2016 at 1:51 AM, SovereignHobbies said:

I'm half-way tempted to hack up my Hasegawa Sea King to make myself a HH-3E 😕

It looks a bit of a job if this build is anything to go by!!!

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/145116-im-afraid-hes-gone-and-done-something-rather-rashquot/&page=1

 

Cracking progress.

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The photo etched detail set arrived:

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To be honest I think I'd struggle to see the point in this even if it was the exact version I was building. All those rectangles are supposed to go between the moulded frames and stringers inside the Cyber Hobby kit. :huh:

 

The zoom set pre-coloured fret will be useful (once the colour is changed) and the other two frets will yield 2 sets of pedals for the cockpit. The rest is junk as far as I can see. I'll maybe still get an exterior set at some point. The Whirlybird conversion does included a PE fret with some useful exterior parts.

 

In the mean time, it's back to seats. These are getting quite tedious. There are 6 more to make. That equals 12 more of those PE seat frames to plasma cut off their frets. I'll be glad when this particular bit is over!

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8 minutes ago, SovereignHobbies said:

All those rectangles are supposed to go between the moulded frames and stringers inside the Cyber Hobby kit

 

I'm also failing to see the point of that!

 

Bob

 

Edit: Love the seats by the way :D

Edited by moaning dolphin
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I'm glad that's over. Now they need paintedified. British Airways Helicopters had blue leather seats, and a red & yellow patterned fabric type which looked orange too. They had to be removed and sent off for re-fireguarding at regular intervals so it was normal to swap seats around - i.e. the stores would have seats in stock, and when a particular aircraft had its seats removed to be sent off, spares would be drawn from stores and fitted, and when the originals came back they'd go in to stores for the next aircraft that needed seats. As such, the seats were rotated and each aircraft had different coloured seats at any given time. Engineering tried to keep them all matching, my dad tells me, but they ultimately were a business and had to deliver airworthy aircraft so if stores only had mismatching seats, that's what was fitted.

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My youngest has fallen asleep on the sofa and I'm off to carry her to bed. I shall ponder over seat colour now!

 

I've also seen some interior photos showing what looks to be a dark blue carpet. I have located photographs of inside the cabin of G-BEWL after its crash (they were taken as part of the investigation in to crash worthiness - this accident led to a number of mandatory safety improvements, as they often do) and it was fitted with the orangy seats at that time and had no carpet and a white painted floor clearly visible. This was later though, so I shall ask my dad again about flooring in BAH days...

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Very much enjoying this, particularly the depth of knowledge and attention to detail being demonstrated by all contributors as well as Jamie. I have been motivated to start my Danish S-61A, and have cut out the required extra windows (I am using the Revell kit). I find that I will need two more of the plain (non-bulged) rectangular windows (part 16) than I have. i would like to use Revell parts for the sake of uniformity, and wonder if anyone has some spares? Please PM me if you have. Many thanks, and thanks Jamie for letting me use your thread.

 

Richard in NZ

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