PK-38 Aerospatiale AS-365N Dauphin 2

[TimV1969]

I'd like to join in this group build with a Revell reboxing of the Aerospatiale Dauphin - well, I say reboxing, but I don't even have the Revell box, I presumably discarded it for being the useless open-ended variety.  But it is a re-pop of the Matchbox kit, anyway - I built one of the originals a long time ago, presumably not long after it first came out, and this Revell one has been in my stash for a while. I intend building it as the HH-65A Dolphin seen in 'Licence to Kill', so I know I need to make or acquire some different decals as that is the era of a white fuselage with red/orange details, and the last time I printed some decals I made up a set of the stripes with the USCG logo on (including duplicates, looking at the photo below I do have some going in the other direction too!).  I may need to re-print these if the stripe colour looks off.  Other than that hopefully the kit mostly portrays an early Dolphin.  I notice I will need to make a winch, and an interior though!  Anyway, My starting point:

 

 

Tim

[Arniec]

Good choice Tim I will be watching.

 

Good luck with your build.

 

Cheers,

[TimV1969]

A small update:  I have glued the control columns and rudder pedals to the cockpit/cabin floor; assembled the instrument panel and centre console; filled and sanded the crew seats; fitted the port rear window and filled and sanded that panel as the HH-65 Dolphin doesn't/didn't have a door there.

 

Next steps: scratch-build the rest of the interior, including a cabinet/storage area behind where the port rear door was; detail the front seats - the real ones have a prominent 'hoop' over the back which I can represent with 0.5mm brass rod I should think.

 

Tim

[TimV1969]

Bit more progress (didn't work  on it last weekend as I was busy laying a laminate floor in the master bedroom!) - 'hoops' added to the seats, interior cabinet built, seat rails added to cabin floor - although the helicopter in the film doesn't appear to have the seat itself fitted - upper glazing tinted (wth Tamiya X-25 Clear Green) and the engine cover/cabin roof assembled and filled:

 

Next steps: complete seats, consider pilots or make seat belts, scratch build other interior bits - a folding seat by the rear starboard door, other interior storage...

Tim

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

I am liking your detailing efforts Tim, any more progress?

 

[TimV1969]

Thanks Ray!  Some small amount of progress:  I have painted the rotorblades, and fitted them to the hub, and also replaced part 33, the rotor 'star', with 3 0.5mm pieces laminated together to more closely match photos of the real thing:

 

I have painted the interior, tried painting figures to represent the coastguard pilots but wasn't happy with my efforts (took me a week to decide this!) so made seatbelts instead - rather over-scale as I used slices from some self-adhesive seatbelt material for 1/24 cars! -but they look okay to me and happily hide the moulding mark I failed to fill in the back of the seats, sanded and painted the cockpit roof/engine cover assembly, tinted (with Tamiya clear green) the roof panels, and glazed the rear door and cheek windows in the fuselage sides:

 

The interior I painted mostly Humbrol 140, with seat covers in Humbrol 64, interior walls and ceiling in Humbrol 127, control sticks, instrument panel cowl and seat hoops in Humbrol 85, and picked out instrument panel dials etc in the same colour:

 

Next steps:  finish interior, possibly mask the roof assembly and paint (in International Orange, I think?) before further assembly, to ease masking problems later, also at least drill a hole in the roof for later fitment of a winch...

 

Tim

[Dermo245]

On 10/10/2017 at 4:46 AM, Arniec said:

Good choice Tim I will be watching.

 

Good luck with your build.

 

Cheers,

Me too!

[TimV1969]

Blimey, hadn't realised it was a month since I updated this thread!  I have some progress since then, mostly masking and painting the overall fuselage white (Halfords FIAT 210, my usual pure white when I don't want something as starkly white as Appliance Gloss White, if that makes sense):

and then masking the white bits and airbrushing the red/orange bits Model Master International Orange (12197) - not my usual brand, but I have US-specific colours in this range - and the black bits brush-painted in Humbrol Satin Black 85:

 

Next steps: fitting and painting the ancillary parts, especially the undercarriage.  And seriously thinking about the winch, which I have been putting off until now...

 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Thanks for the update, paint looks good.

[stevej60]

Looking good from here!

[TimV1969]

Apologies, left this far too long without updates - only in part caused by the lack of sunny days for taking decent photos... So, just about finished now, I assembled and fitted the undercarriage, scratch-built the winch - the bullet-shaped body is a combination of a 70mm rocket pod and filler, the arm is a section from a 1/25 wheel rim, and applied decals - mostly home-printed apart from the 'stars and bars', the smaller markings around the tail, and the rescue arrows:

 

 

 

I think pretty much all I need to do now is re-paint the door handles a deeper shade of yellow - to match the rescue markings - and I'll call it done.  A couple of things I notice from the photos: the 'aerospatiale' markings were I presume product-placement in the film, and not carried by the service aircraft (I found a suitable corporate logo online and re-formatted it to print the decal); and the door handles were all outlined in black, presumably to make them standout - I replicated this with a fine-tipped marker pen.

[stevej60]

Cracking job all round Tim,look'sgreat in that scheme.