Return of the King - Seaking HAS5 ZE419 of 820NAS, HMS Ark Royal 1988

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Somewhere in the 103 pages of the old thread there was a photo I used to show a gust lock - and only later realised it was an odd cab; early radome, 6-blade tail, but a light grey scheme (of the type that came in WAY after HAS2s had gone) and a Saltire. 

 

I wonder if it’s the same cab

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

No new work (though there will be later, no doubt) - but I am experimenting with taking better pictures by building a home-made light box out of an old cardboard box and some tracing paper.

 

Better, I think - even with a bog standard iPhone camera.

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

The core of all 4 weapon carriers is now done; this photo gives a false impression of the one front left as we look - the angle makes the left hand bracket look much fatter than it is.  There are (as I guess you'd kind of expect) two mirror image pairs - the two aft stations at the back & the two stub-wing stations in the front.  So far I have just painted them Anthracite Grey (a Revell Enamel colour which I love).  Lots more detail still to be added, but the brackets (which were among the bits that led to the mojo-block a few months ago) are now sorted.  

 

Very happy with progress.

 

More tomorrow, I expect

 

Crisp

[Col.]

Fairly sure I'd made mention of how impressive the research and detailling was on the old thread but it bears repeating here given that the same standards are continuing 

[giemme]

On 6/4/2018 at 21:33, keefr22 said:

I think there might be another secret Crisp in that the wire appears to need to have been painted first, so the glue is actually adhering to the paint.

The only safe way I know for gluing unpainted wires, whatever the metal, is ... Tamiya Green Cap. I basically use it to slightly melt the kit plastic,  and press the wire in place with a toothpick till it tends to set (30-40 seconds).

It obviously only works on unpainted plastic surfaces ...

 

Magnificent detail modelling going on here, Crisp

I hope the "other kind of flying things" 's mojo will return soon too ...

 

Ciao

Edited April 8, 2018 by giemme

[corsaircorp]

Great détails Crip, I'm really impressed !

Never noticed these stations on the Sea Kings !

Really good job, Congrats !

Sincerely.

CC

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Getting there - this will eventually be Station 3 (starboard aft).

 

I have provided the near-universal measure of scale, namely a Swann-Morton blade.  Those of you who have followed my builds for a while will not be even a little surprised to see that I have answered my own question about whether I should add the EMRU on the underside.  Of course I have.  9 pieces of styrene (per carrier) later...

 

There is still one more piece to add, namely the battery port cover - which is the horizontal frame on the bottom of the springs (in the foreground here)...

 

When there is a Stingray loaded, (top marks to the FAA Museum for loading a Stingray TVT [Training Variant Torpedo] for illustration!) this frame holds in place (in flight) and then retains (when the torpedo is dropped) a box-shape, which covers the a hole on top of the weapon.  Stingrays are powered by a high power (but short life - it only needs to run for a few minutes at most!) sea-water battery; when the torpedo hits the water the sea gets into the hole and powers it up, and it takes over from the relatively low power battery which has retained the targeting info passed to it just before it left the aircraft.   You do not, of course, want water (rain, spray etc) to get into this hole (& thus power up the weapon) while it's still on the side of the helicopter... hence the spring-loaded horizontal thingumajig.

 

Note that this shows Station 2 (the port forward weapon carrier), and the brackets are a totally different shape.  [Of course they are; you're not making this easy, Westlands!]  You can also see the electrical plug through the aircraft skin (at the top of the photo).

 

@corsaircorp, lots of people haven't noticed the weapon carriers; aircraft at displays tend not to have them fitted (not because they are secret or anything, but because airshow crowds will find a way of breaking almost anything, so if you don't need it you don't take it with you!).  Modellers tend to build SAR aircraft on the whole (better known because those are the ones the public see, and more interesting colour schemes), or HC4s (more publicity in Bosnia, Gulf, Afghan etc) - you rarely see a model of a standard RN Anti-Submarine aircraft, despite the fact that well over ¾ of the airframes ever built were in some version of this configuration: it was what the aircraft was designed for.

 

This aircraft was the backbone of the Royal Navy's anti-submarine effort for almost 50 years, until it was superseded by the Merlin (which itself has now been in service for close to 20 years).  No-one has produced a 1/48 kit of either type at any point (yes, there's an Airfix 1/48 Merlin, but you need to perform some pretty drastic surgery to turn it from a Junglie cab to a Pinger.).  I asked the Airfix guys at Telford whether they had even considered producing an ASW version (as with the Seaking, there are far more ASW Merlins than troop carriers) - "there wouldn't be the demand to justify it", apparently.  [Though of course you can buy kits of numerous Luftwaffe machines that never got beyond the drawing board, were never built, and would almost certainly have been death-traps if they had... - not, to be fair, produced by Airfix!]

 

I was lucky enough to fly Seakings in both ASW and SAR rôles, so have an excuse to build an SAR aircraft later.  I already have the kit!  But this represents the Royal Navy's real workhorse throughout the 70s, 80s & 90s.  We worked them seriously hard for almost 50 years, and they just kept going.  [Indeed, the AEW aircraft - some of which started their life as HAS 2s (possibly even HAS 1s) - are still in service, though not for much longer]

 

More soon

Crisp

Edited April 8, 2018 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[corsaircorp]

Hello Crisp,

Thanks for the explanation, and I agree about that Luftwaffe 46 or even 47 machines !

In airshow here, we used to see the Belgian Sea Kings, I did a photo report years ago

so I have a lot of pics when they've been upgraded in the '90.

Flying her with 2 torpedo on these stations in an adverse weather must have been a challenge !

I suppose that they can work alone, no longer hunter killer teams ?

Thank you all !

sincerely.

CC

[Terry1954]

Many thanks @Ex-FAAWAFU for such continued interesting and informative stuff!

I loved the RN Sea King era, and the old girl still flies around near where I live. A training unit for the German Navy based recently out of Portland I've learned. My wife still can't get over my boyish habit of darting out into the garden when I hear one coming! Plenty of Lynx and Wildcat activity here also.

Am so inspired by this thread that I am now looking into what I would need to turn my Hasegawa 1/48 JASDF Sea King into an RN ASW model! It shouldnt be happening cos I am of the One True Scale faith ................ 

Cheers

Terry

Edited April 9, 2018 by Terry1954

[Sleepwalker]

It is a madness but on the positive side thou. Great job :-)

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Terry - if you get the FlightPath (www.djparkins.com) conversion set, then you can convert pretty much any Hasegawa 1/48 Seaking into an RN version.  The set isn’t cheap, but it is worth every penny.  I originally acquired mine with a view to converting Hasegawa’s AEW2a boxing, but they then came out with the so-called “HAR5 Ark Royal” version, so I immediately bought a couple of those since some of the work is already done for you (e.g. radar).  But any Hasegawa boxing will do - all that varies is the amount of work (e.g. how many windows etc you need to adapt).  David produces a conversion kit for an AEW 2, HC 4 & HAS 6.

 

The Portland German SAR training op is run by a friend of mine.  They have 2 ex-RN cabs, including XV666 (“Damien”), a serious veteran; first flew as an HAS1 in June 1970, converted to HAS2 in 1978, was the final aircraft ever to launch from HMS Eagle as she was towed to the breakers, converted to HAS5 in 1985... worked as an SAR cab with 771 from June 1988 until retirement from the RN in April 2016 (so presumably adapted to the HU5 specialist SAR configuration at some stage - removing the sonar etc).  Goodness knows how many hours there are on that airframe by now!  48 years and still going strong...  Still belongs to the Navy, apparently, and leased to HeliOps - that will be something to do with airworthiness certification needs.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Terry1954]

3 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Terry - if you get the FlightPath (www.djparkins.com) conversion set, then you can convert pretty much any Hasegawa 1/48 Seaking into an RN version.

Thanks for that, I'll take a look. I suspect the best single source will also be found in your earlier 103 page thread!

 

Interesting about the German SAR training. I first became aware when I heard what I instinctively knew to be a Sea King a few months back. When it came into view it was still too far away to make out clearly but what puzzled me was that from such a distance it looked like a blue/grey and orange SAR from a bygone age - thought it was a ghost! I later discovered what it actually was. I plan to pop down to Portland soon and see if I can get some decent photo's. A 48 year old airframe still flying is quite a credit to the type. Interesting also about the leasing arrangement but I guess I can understand that re certification.

 

Thanks again, and keep up the excellent work on this one!

 

Terry

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 4/8/2018 at 10:12 PM, corsaircorp said:

Flying her with 2 torpedo on these stations in an adverse weather must have been a challenge !

 

I suppose that they can work alone, no longer hunter killer teams ?

The only difference 2 torpedoes would make to the aircraft's handling is the weight - each weapon roughly equals 30-40 minutes of fuel.  [That's assuming you aren't stupid enough to hang them off the rear carriers only - in which case you wouldn't get airborne because the centre of gravity would be out of limits; all that weight at the back would mean you'd run out of control authority.  This was not always true - see later about why weight kept on being added in the back; this shows an HAS 1 jettisoning 4 Mk.44 torpedoes at the same time, as part of the acceptance into service trials.  Note, incidentally, the totally different weapon carriers; the ones on my cab are Stingray carriers.

 

However, we generally used to fly with a Stingray on one side and a Mk.11 Depth Charge on the other. You'd have to get lucky to do significant damage to a modern submarine with a Mk.11, but as a means of classifying a probable contact it is unrivalled; no submarine captain is going to take absolutely no action when one of those goes off a few yards from his hull... and when he changes speed or course, you know for sure he's a submarine and drop a Stingray on him.

 

 

Hmmm.  Hunter killer pairs.  Long, rambling, discursive post coming up. [I've been meaning to do this for months].

 

Like all warfare disciplines, the history of ASW is a series of technology battles - better submarines sometimes have the upper hand, until better ASW technology overtakes them (or vice versa).  Usually the key advances are in detection range vs weapon range.

 

Until the very end of WW2 submarines were really submersibles.  Their underwater range was limited, they couldn't go very fast on batteries, and made a LOT of noise (and were also pretty much blind) when snorting.  But even then, it was a constantly evolving cycle of improving detection range and/or attack range - things like Hedgehog were systems for throwing depth charges ahead of a ship, for instance, so the frigate/corvette no longer had to risk driving straight over the top of a submarine in order to attack it.  Similarly, WW2 aircraft gained the upper hand when centimetric radar was invented - they could now detect a snort mast on radar, and the Germans knew it - so even if all you achieved was to force the U-boat to dive and stay dived, then you'd done your job, since attacking a convoy required visual aiming (or even attacking on the surface, which was a favourite "wolf pack" tactic at night because of the additional speed available). 

 

Right at the end of the war the Germans came up with the Type XXI U-Boat, which was really the first proper submarine, in that it was designed from the outset to operate mostly submerged.  They were a huge technological advance (batteries, streamlining [so less hull noise], sensors etc). and thus there were lots of teething problems... luckily for us.  Only 4 were combat ready by the end of the war, of which only 2 actually went on patrol.  Needless to say the victorious Allies all grabbed a few, and the 1950s UK Porpoise, US Tang and Soviet Romeo, Whisky & Zulu classes of diesel-electric boats were all heavily influenced by the Type XXI.  [Only 1 survives; the West Germans raised a scuttled one in 1957 and re-commissioned her as Wilhelm Bauer, used as a research boat until 1982 - and now in a museum in Bremerhaven.]

 

To deal with Type XXI-style boats, the ASW people focused on passive sonar; simply listening, as opposed to making a noise and listening for an echo.  My father wasn't demobilised until early 1947, and he spent the last 18 months of his career developing sonobuoy tactics from RNAS Maydown in Northern Ireland, flying Barracudas.  Where I started flying passive ASW almost 40 years later, the techniques were recognisably the same - but the technology was much better and the targets very different.

 

So the Type-XXI was countered by better passive ASW (sonobuoys from aircraft); though the Type XXI was a massive advance on its predecessors, it was still pretty crude by modern standards.  Notably, to get a useful speed meant running on diesels via a schnorkel ("snort") mast, which made a lot of underwater noise... which is where the sonobuoys came in.  Yes, they were relatively quiet running on batteries and had much greater range than earlier boats (they could run for 48 hours without charging)... but they could still only do about 5 knots, which meant that outrunning them wasn't hard even for a convoy.  1950s & even 60s tactics were thus not changed much from the war; thoroughly sweep ahead of the convoy / ship (known as "de-lousing") to either force the boats to go deep or to move out of the way... because then they won't be able to get into position to attack without using diesels & thus making lots of noise, and if they make noise you find and sink them.  I have done an exercise with an Egyptian Romeo class boat (essentially a wartime U-boat), and you could hear it clanking away from many, many miles away.

 

Hunter killer pairs?  The two main sensors to find & track these sorts of boat are a good radar and sonar - sonobuoys only for fixed-wing, and both sonobuoys and active sonar for rotary-wing.  1950s versions of these sensors were really heavy (valve technology etc) and/or big - so were airborne weapons - and early helicopters were not very powerful, to put it mildly.  Even some fixed wing struggled with carrying everything - hence things like the immediate post-War Grumman AF2 Guardian; one carried the sensors (the AF2-S Hunter) and its twin (the AF2-W Killer) the weapons.  The Gannet was at least big enough to carry both - requiring 2 gas turbines, 3 crew and a huge bomb bay.

 

Back to helicopters, though - everyone (Russians too, though the rest of this doesn't discuss their ASW aircraft) was trying to work towards an "airborne frigate"; a fully autonomous single aircraft that could find, track, localise and attack a submarine without the need for a surface ship to be anywhere near (and thus vulnerable).  But knowing what you wanted to build and actually building it are two very different things.  The Whirlwind HAS7 was the first RN helicopter specifically designed for ASW, but it wasn't powerful enough to carry a sonar and a weapon at the same time, so used a similar hunter-killer pair concept to the Grumman Guardian.  It wasn't simply a matter of power-to-weight, either; the Whirly was active sonar only (sonobuoys were strictly for fixed-wing at this stage).  "Hot & high" conditions could make it very marginal maintaining a hover at all, but (assuming normal North Atlantic conditions) that was seldom the issue.  The problem was that a helicopter sonar is a heavy lump on the end of a long thin wire, so the aircraft must be really stable in the hover - if not, the sonar isn't vertical and the maths of calculating ranges and bearings rapidly becomes impossible since the sensor is at a weird angle.  Hovering visually over the sea with any degree of precision is really hard - and of course it is impossible by night, simply because the pilot can see absolutely nothing at all.  So the Whirlwind was strictly day only, and very demanding on the pilot even then.

 

The Whirly was a start, but a very long way from being an "airborne frigate".

 

Next up, the Wessex.  Gas turbine engines, so better power-to-weight; the Napier Gazelle of the HAS1 was over a quarter of a ton lighter than the Wright Cyclone of the S-58 on which the Wessex was based.  Better still, the Wessex had a good Doppler system and a revolutionary (for its day) Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS) which meant that the aircraft could hover over the sea by itself.  In the Wessex HAS 1 it was only simplex (which must have made the pilots very twitchy indeed), but by the HAS 3 it was duplex and pretty reliable - essentially the same system was used for the Seaking.  Better yet, the HAS 3 had a radar - at last the dream of autonomous operations away from the ship get closer.

 

But.  Still under-powered.  Still single engine (not great when night hovering, to be honest...).  And in particular still poor endurance when carrying a 4-man crew, full sensors and weapons.  It was because of this endurance issue that the RN developed HIFR (helicopter in-flight refuelling - pronounced "Haifa") - a Wessex could take fuel from a ship without a flight deck (or without forcing a flight-deck ship to alter course), and since they typically operated as part of an ASW "screen" (i.e. alongside frigates, still de-lousing ahead of a convoy and/or "high value unit"), this helped.

 

But wait, we're well into the 60s now and submarine designs have not stood still.  In particular, nuclear power has come along.  This was a complete game-changer; snort masts because obsolete overnight, and a nuke boat could travel at remarkable speed underwater (even early boats could do 30kts+), with range / endurance limited only by the food etc needs of the crew.  Suddenly, a Victor (for example) can use its speed to work itself into position, attack from any direction and then run away deep.  It might not even have to stick a mast up at all, relying purely on its own passive sonar to work out an attack solution (though that is far from easy).  Worse yet, submarine torpedo ranges have grown hugely; no longer do they have to come within a couple of thousand yards to the target to get a decent chance of success.  Plus things like wake-homing torpedos (another German late-war idea that happily didn't quite make it to full maturity in time) mean that they can (in theory at least) fire a weapon in the general direction of a ship from a fair distance away and rely on the weapon to do most of the work.  The odds have swung hugely in the submarine's favour; the ASW screen of active sonars looking for submarines is no longer anything like enough.

 

The answer came from noise.  Any vessel travelling fast makes propellor noise - modern prop design (water jets, shrouded props etc etc) can reduce submarine prop noise a lot, but not eliminate it entirely, and especially not at anything other than very low speed because a phenomenon called cavitation comes into play - the propellor blade generates bubbles at high speed, and the collapsing bubbles make noise (it's more complex than that, but that's the gist!).  Not only that, but even a completely stationary nuclear boat makes noise, because the one thing you really can't do with a reactor is to turn off the cooling pumps.  So passive sonar became the cutting edge - ever-more complex and sophisticated sonobuoys and acoustic analysis (to the point where individual hulls could be identified by their noise signature - e.g. Victor III Hull Number 1234 generates noise at such-and-such frequencies, so we know it's definitely him).

 

The Wessex would have been useless as passive ASW helicopter, because of its range / endurance.  Passive ASW became a serious cat-and-mouse game through the 70s & 80s, with quieter and quieter boats on the one hand and more & more sophisticated buoys and processing (computers, etc) on the other.  But even tracking a "noisy" (it was all relative) boat wasn't easy - even once you have detected the thing, it takes quite a lot of time to refine the position sufficiently to attack it; no good if you have to nip off to get fuel in the middle.  And, since the standard NATO war scenario was still basically convoys reinforcing Europe from the USA, with the RN & USN protecting them, it also helps hugely if you can work well away from the convoy - because otherwise noisy surface ships drown out the targets.

 

Enter the Seaking.  Two really good, reliable engines.  Better radar - especially from the HAS5 onwards.  Better AFCS.  Better sonar.  MAD (some HAS5s, and all HAS6s).  Genuinely all-weather, day and night.  Best of all, an endurance of 4 hours+, even carrying 4 crew, a full outfit of sonobuoys and a weapon or two.  Originally designed in the active ASW screen era, it was the first ASW helicopter that really could operate as an airborne frigate; either completely autonomously, or controlling other units using its radar.  [The way ASW works, whoever is in contact with the submarine runs the fight - which means that it was very common for a first tour Sub/Lt Observer aged, say, 23, to be telling 4 or 5 grizzled NATO Captains where to put their vessels and/or 3 or 4 other aircraft what to do.  You need to be well trained to get that right.]  So the HAS 1 & 2 were a quantum leap over the Wessex as 60s ASW helicopters - and though it arrived just as Soviet nukes made active ASW semi-obsolete (though conventional boats are still around to this day, so not completely), the Seaking was powerful and adaptable enough to embrace passive ASW as well.  That's why I sometimes allude to the fact that the RN stuffed more and more equipment into the back of the aircraft (giving us centre of gravity problems and a weird hover attitude) - it was all passive ASW gear, especially in the HAS 5.

 

I flew a couple of Mk 2s in early training, but I only ever operated the HAS 5 or 6; I was from the era of full-on Cold War Passive ASW.  Our bread & butter was the so-called "Ripple 3"; 3 aircraft airborne all the time (2 on task, with 1 in transit to / from the scene of action) 100+ miles away from the carrier / convoy, sometimes for weeks at a time.  I joined 820 NAS / Ark in late-86, and the first thing we did was a major NATO exercise escorting a convoy from Norfolk VA to Harstad in Northern Norway - we had 3 aircraft on task for over 3 weeks, non-stop.  I shudder to think how many sonobuoys we "spat" in a 3000+ mile line across the Atlantic.  [100+ miles away, by the way, because by then the Soviets had developed long-range missiles that they could fire from e.g. a Charlie class SSN, thus attacking the convoy without having to get all that close - targeting info coming from Russian aircraft, which was one of the original reasons for procuring the Sea Harrier].  It was tiring, but possible to keep it up almost indefinitely - we had 14 crews, and 9 aircraft, so even if you had, say, 4 cabs broken at any time (not uncommon!), there were enough to keep the Ripple going.  You got into a rhythm: wake up; eat; brief an hour before take off; fly for 4 hours; debrief [& file your records if you'd come across any real Soviet boats]; go to bed... 6 hours later repeat... and repeat... and repeat...

 

But if it's an airborne frigate, why do you need 2 on task?  Because it gives you much more flexibility; for instance, one of the Soviet tactics was so-called "sprint & drift" - if it thought it had been detected (and if you flew too low they would hear you), the SSN would wind up to 30kts and shoot off 50 miles or so, and then suddenly go completely silent; slow right down and use natural salinity / temperature layers in the water to interfere with sonar.  If you only had one aircraft, he would have to be incredibly unlucky for you to keep up with that - effectively his boat simply disappeared.  But with two, provided you were worked up and in good practice, one of you could track the boat while it was fast (& noisy) and direct the other to fly ahead... and then swap.  If they didn't know you were there, then over time it was possible to get a really accurate picture of where the boat was (all passively) - so one of you would run the plot, and use the other cab as the weapon carrier.  Or, if in doubt, direct the other cab into a hover ahead of the target... ping... contact... weapon in the water within seconds before he has time to react.

 

At its worst, this was soul-crushingly boring.  Stooging around for 4 hours at 6000'+ (nosebleed territory for helicopters) at maximum endurance speed (c.65 kts), in the dark so on instruments, spitting sonobuoys and finding... diddly squat.  But when you were in contact - which was often with the real thing (e.g. on that 3 weeks crossing the Atlantic, we detected and tracked around 10 Russian SSNs [probably not 10 separate hulls, but 4 different types, so deffo not the same bloke 10 times!], since they were just as interested in watching us practice as vice versa) - it was 3-dimensional chess; it could be really exciting.   Sometimes the SSN drivers would get bored, or decide to test their own tactics (we never knew), so they'd give up trying to be sneaky-beaky and stay silent, and instead try shaking us off with speed, big sudden changes in course, decoys etc.  Tracking a fast nuke, in daylight, with 2 aircraft using both passive and active techniques - very, very demanding, but enormous fun.

 

I hope it goes without saying that I am 100% delighted that we never had to do it for real.  

 

If Debs were still here, she could fill you in on the Nimrod perspective on all this - they were an integral part of this stuff, and the RN & RAF worked together extremely closely (my regular Observer at this time, for instance, later spent 3 years on exchange doing the same stuff in a Nimrod).  And between us we were very very good at it. [Don't be fooled by the banter and inter-Service rivalry; in reality each service knows full well that the other is good at what it does, and gives due respect.  The banter is just banter].

 

Then the Gulf War, Al Qaeda and Afghanistan etc came along, and ASW went completely out of fashion.  The Merlin is a great deal more capable than the Seaking (and my knowledge is now over 20 years out of date, so things will have moved on again, no doubt), but the skills are perishable and we didn't practice them very much in the early Noughties (not a criticism; the RN cannot possibly keep current at everything).  So the boys and girls are now having to re-learn all this stuff once again, I understand; rippling from tankers etc is commonplace once more.  We have even (at long last, shamefully late in my opinion) ordered a really capable modern Nimrod replacement in the P8.

 

So, in answer to your question, @corsaircorp; hunter-killer pairs pre-Seaking yes, but once the Seaking came long, no.

 

More soon

Crisp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[keefr22]

That is a most excellent post Crisp! Many thanks for taking the time to write & post it! 

 

Keith

[Courageous]

A very interesting narrative Mr Crisp, especially from one who was one of the 'hunted'. I used to enjoy the exercises with the ASW guys, doing our stuff to avoid and you to find. Don't think I would have enjoyed it so much with the 'baddies'.

[Pete in Lincs]

An excellent summation, Crisp. I really enjoyed that.

Stranger things do happen at sea.

I agree about the banter too. When it came down to the crunch,

we all knew who was good at what, and we didn't get in their way when they did it.

[perdu]

This is page three

 

This is the finest page three in publishing history from the point of view of a guy like me

 

Sixties/seventies Miltarealismwise

 

Fantastic informative and knowledgeable stuff from 'The Man'

Thank you for all this Crisp 

[Terry1954]

9 minutes ago, perdu said:

This is page three

 

This is the finest page three in publishing history from the point of view of a guy like me

 

Sixties/seventies Miltarealismwise

 

Fantastic informative and knowledgeable stuff from 'The Man'

Thank you for all this Crisp 

I can only second that. Just read the whole lot and it was not only informative but entirely fascinating. 

 

Thank you @Ex-FAAWAFU for sharing this stuff, brilliant.

 

Terry

[Brandy]

With all the info I've been cramming into my head over the last month, plus that little tome, I think my head's about to go "ding - Full!"

 But it was fun, and very enlightening!

 

Ian

[corsaircorp]

A great thank to you Crisp !

That's very interesting and you tell it so vividly ! Many Thanks !

That seem so easy when you look at "The hunt for Red october " But the reality is even more fascinating !

I knew a lot but now I grew up wiser...

And will have a more comprehensive respect for the ASW guys.. and girls !

Thank again !

Sincerely.

CC

 

[MarkdipXV711]

10 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Terry - if you get the FlightPath (www.djparkins.com) conversion set, then you can convert pretty much any Hasegawa 1/48 Seaking into an RN version.  The set isn’t cheap, but it is worth every penny.  I originally acquired mine with a view to converting Hasegawa’s AEW2a boxing, but they then came out with the so-called “HAR5 Ark Royal” version, so I immediately bought a couple of those since some of the work is already done for you (e.g. radar).  But any Hasegawa boxing will do - all that varies is the amount of work (e.g. how many windows etc you need to adapt).  David produces a conversion kit for an AEW 2, HC 4 & HAS 6.

 

The Portland German SAR training op is run by a friend of mine.  They have 2 ex-RN cabs, including XV666 (“Damien”), a serious veteran; first flew as an HAS1 in June 1970, converted to HAS2 in 1978, was the final aircraft ever to launch from HMS Eagle as she was towed to the breakers, converted to HAS5 in 1985... worked as an SAR cab with 771 from June 1988 until retirement from the RN in April 2016 (so presumably adapted to the HU5 specialist SAR configuration at some stage - removing the sonar etc).  Goodness knows how many hours there are on that airframe by now!  48 years and still going strong...  Still belongs to the Navy, apparently, and leased to HeliOps - that will be something to do with airworthiness certification needs.

Worth bearing in mind though that the Westland Sea king had a slightly different angled tail pylon and a slightly smaller horizontal tail stabilizer without a support strut. I'm sure the hasegawa and Revell kits do reflect this slight difference. Worth checking but the rest is easily adapted.

[hendie]

all those folks just above me have stated what needed to be said. Excellent and informative post.

[giemme]

I can only concur with the others, Crisp: excellent, informative and fascinating post, with great insights

 

Ciao

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

9 hours ago, MarkdipXV711 said:

Worth bearing in mind though that the Westland Sea king had a slightly different angled tail pylon and a slightly smaller horizontal tail stabilizer without a support strut. I'm sure the hasegawa and Revell kits do reflect this slight difference. Worth checking but the rest is easily adapted.

I can’t speak for the Revell kit (wrong scale for me), but the Hasegawa kit certainly has an accurate RN tail - though of course my Hasegawa’s are all RN (2 x HU5 & 1 x AEW2a), so maybe the Sikorski / Mitsubishi versions are different.  Check your sources... though the differences are fixable with a bit of modelling.

 

There are sometimes differences with the sponsons, too (again, depending of which Hasegawa version you have).  The FlightPath conversion kit solves that; it has 2 resin sponsons in it.  If you want to build an HAS 5 with the MAD sponson, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

 

Complicated, innit?

Edited April 10, 2018 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[CJP]

Fabulous and interesting post Crisp - you should write a book about it! - your Sea King build and the above information would be a book I would buy

CJP