Ex-FAAWAFU

Aircrew blameless for once; you can see that the LHS pilot is near as dammit spot on the “bum line” fore-and-aft and the inner of the two centre lines, which is exactly where he’s meant to be. It happened at night; the Shar was supposed to be parked (by the Chockheads, post-maintenance) on “7½” spot (the rear of the two dotted lines), but they got the wrong one on what was a pretty dark night. The Sea King was landing on 5 spot, which (at night) means a normal approach down the ‘meatball’ visual approach aid - probably flown by the right hand seat pilot - and then move across the stern once you have good visual references, with the LH pilot taking the landing itself because he can see the deck. During fixed-wing ops a 5 Spot landing was pretty much SOP, because it made no great difference to us and meant we could get on with our flying programme without disrupting the Stovies. A parked Harrier on 7½ spot always looked very close when you were in the hover alongside, so the pilot would have disregarded it on the grounds that you can trust the deck crews. His marshaller probably much the same; “it looks tight, but it always does”. Besides, at night the flying pilot would have been concentrating on being properly lined up - as indeed he was. Luckily for the rest of us, the “he” in question for this incident was the Squadron CO; otherwise we’d probably never have heard the end of it! He lined himself up, settled into the hover and then moved sideways across the deck along the “bum line”. At this point he’d have been in a 10-15’ hover above the deck (i.e. 80-85’ above the sea before moving) - luckily for all concerned, that put his tail rotor above the jet; otherwise they’d have had a tail rotor failure at night as he moved sideways and either crashed on deck or fallen into the sea, spinning, from 90’ up (either way, not good). Then the pilot committed to the landing, and as they came down the tail rotor hit the Harrier, with the results you can see above. The guys inside the cab felt a lurch and heard a noise but had no idea what had happened. I was on deck manning up another cab beside the island and heard a loud BRRRRRRRRP noise and saw sparks flying up the deck - they later found shards of tail rotor on the ramp. Astonishingly no-one was hurt & neither Sea King nor Sea Harrier was badly damaged. The Sea King needed a new TR (obvs!) and a change to the shock-loaded main & intermediate gearboxes (strangely the tail rotor box was OK. The Shar a bit of pipe work and a replacement panel. The perils of multi-aircraft ops to a busy, tight deck.

I've looked at this a lot since you posted that, and I think it's an optical illusion from the combo of my shonky iPhone photo and the slight difference in design choices. To test it in real life, I taped the Airfix port fuselage part to the Hasegawa starboard: Allowing for inaccuracies of taping (in particular, to get it really shut I would need to remove a locating pin from the Airfix part, and my interest only goes so far!), the two fit together remarkably well, and the hull and tailcone shapes look essentially identical. My reference to 'design choices' might be shown better any this second shot: On first sight it looks as though the Airfix part is significantly shallower from top to bottom, but that is because Airfix have opted to have the tunnel for the tail rotor drive shaft as a separate part (thus neatly taking the whole "seam along the spine" thing out of the game, and also making it easier for them to mould future differences in aerial fit etc along the spine. You can see from the oil cooler area at the back of the 'dog kennel' (just under my index finger) that the two parts align very well once you get beyond the TR drive shaft. The three white blobs are where I have filled the slots for the aerodynamic strake along the tail, which was not present on the HAS1 - Airfix have included this in the instructions. [For those of you who aren't up in Sea King trivia, it was found that the downwash over the tail pylon was effectively turning the whole tail into a wing shape, so by fitting the strake to the port side the airflow was disrupted that side but smooth on the other, thus generating some "lift" / yaw moment tail to starboard. This off-loaded the tail rotor (which pushes rather than pulls) and thus saved power. The effect was more marked at high weight / higher power, and since the HAS2 had uprated engines & transmission (hence the need for the extra tail rotor blade), the strake was introduced from the HAS2 onwards] More actual modelling shortly! Crisp

I’m a huge oil dotting fan, as I think you know. You have executed it with your customary subtlety & aplomb. [Nice “follow me through” thrown in for good measure. Is this the “effects of controls” sortie in the Fritag syllabus?]

Follow-on for those unfamiliar with the AEW radar installation in a Sea King; a "Bagger" in full flight (in this case, an ASaC7, the final version of the Sea King in RN service):

They are very different. Same shape, sure, but an awful lot of detail differences; if you want chapter & verse, search for “ZE419” in BM works in progress, where you’ll find over 100 pages of me making the changes to a Hasegawa SH-3 (& a “Ark Royal SAR” boxing at that, so they’d done some of the work) to turn into an HAS5

That photo of the ASaC7 is all the more confusing if you’re not sure, because the colostomy bag is in mid-travel from horizontal (on the ground) to vertical (airborne), presumably because the aircraft has only just taken off. Here fully horizontal, but fully inflated: Here (top left, if you can drag your eyes away from the expensive cock-up to starboard), deflated and shut down: I don’t seem to have one to hand of a Bagger with its Searchwater fully deployed, but there are lots around on the interwebs

My ZE419 build (linked earlier in this thread) is a good place to start! 120 pages of Sea King goodness and general waffling

Wasn’t the Chief of Astérix & Obélix’s village always worrying about the sky falling on his head? Clearly it’s a French obsession - I shall definitely check this jewel cinematique out. Ambassador, with your hints at future Sea King projects you are rilly spoiling urrzz, as the Ferrero Rocher ads would put it. Luckily for you, Messrs Airfix are scratching my Sea King itch at the moment, but even so…

The strengthening plates were fitted around the mid- to late-90s; some early HAS6s didn't have them, but they were quickly added. The perks of adding more and more stuff in the back over the years! It is possible to find an RAF BG cab with them fitted, but be careful, cos it's not what it seems - a 771 NAS HU5 (look carefully and you can see the Ace of Clubs under the belly) was painted in a retro scheme for the 40 Years of RN Sea Kings 100 Years of Naval Aviation celebrations in 2009. [Credit Mark Russell] Here is an 820 NAS HAS5 (flown by me, though obvs I am not visible!) having just fished a Sea Harrier pilot out of the oggin off Scotland in 1987; clearly no strengthening plates here: Here they are clearly visible on both the ASaC7 in the foreground and the HU5 behind - I think this was during the flypast for the Sea King's retirement a couple of years ago.

Mine’s going to be folded, Bertie, so your wait goes on!

After the visit to Historic Helicopters yesterday, I really fancy a Mk.48 (Belgian) at some future point. Great scheme, for a start. Probably best based on a HAR3 kit when it arrives, because of the extra battery bay on the starboard side - combine it with the unused Sea Searcher radome from my current (!) HAS1 build and Robert is your Mother’s Brother!

Finally for today... There's quite a lot of preparing parts in this kit (or, to be more accurate, there is if you opt to do the HAS1, since that's the version which seems to need the most updating of what is moulded - fair enough, since the other 3 are essentially all flavours of HAS5). It probably helps if you are not a half wit; despite Airfix's crystal clear instructions, I managed to drill out a pair of incorrect holes (the two white blobs are bits of styrene rod inserted into the holes and trimmed). None the less, we have a sonar well. We also have one side of the transportation strengthening plates removed; it takes patience and a set of micro-chisels (indispensable tools in my opinion), but it can be done. Starboard side not yet done, port side done and awaiting (re-)installation of some rivet / dents of my own. More soon Crisp

Right. Back to the kit (those of you unfamiliar with a Crisp-build will soon either get used to the regular wandering off into descriptions of flying these things... or just lose interest and give up!). The decal sheet - sorry about the odd angle, but it was an attempt to minimise reflections. 4 schemes, all for the same airframe (rather a nice idea, I think): 1. an RAF Blue Grey HAS1 with white codes etc (the one I am building), as they were when introduced to service in 1970 2. Medium Sea Grey HAS5 of the Soggy Moggies (814 Naval Air Squadron) in 1988, also white codes - 1988 was just after the Sea King fleet moved from RAF BG with black codes, as introduced during the Falklands) 3. the classic RN SAR HU5 Medium Sea Grey & Signal red SAR scheme of 771 NAS in 1995 and 4. as Damien is now, in the rather fetching orange and grey scheme of HeliOps, a civilian organisation (almost entirely ex-RN instructors) who fly two Sea Kings out of Portland training crews for countries that still operate the type (notably the Germans). [All 4 built examples fairly obviously taken from my photos at yesterday's launch event] One day I will definitely build an HU5, but mine will be an 819 NAS SAR cab from my time in Prestwick in the early-90s - but for my first go I have opted to do the aircraft as it looked when introduced to the RN, replacing the Wessex HAS3. Let's face it, I'm likely to end up building several of these! If you are familiar with the Hasegawa kit, I thought you might like to see a direct comparison: Airfix above, Hasegawa below Dimensions are essentially identical, which is good because the Hasegawa kit is pretty accurate, albeit of a Sikorsky Sea King (for example that bump immediately below the window opening underneath the exhaust is not there on a Westland-built aircraft) You can clearly see the two pressure refuelling points I mentioned above in this photo, plus the window behind the cargo door, which is present in (for example) the HAR3 (& Belgian Mk 48, German Mk. 41, and so on). Here's the port side comparison (I must have started the Hasegawa at some point, because I have begun the process of filling in that for'd window). Again, window positions / options point to future versions. The main and most obvious difference is that the Hasegawa kit is almost completely smooth, and the Airfix one covered in rivets. As anyone who has ever been anywhere near a real Sea King will know, they are festooned with rivets - thousands of them. The real ones are dome-headed (i.e. slightly proud of the aircraft skin), but Airfix have depicted them via the classic indentations used in almost every riveted kit in (recent!) history. A couple of people on the Rumourmonger thread weren't happy with the way Airfix have done this, but I think their version will look excellent under paint (q.v. The examples above). In the past I have added HGW 1/48 rivets to a Hasegawa Sea King, as many of you will remember: indeed here she is, as of this morning. So if the rivets really bother you, no doubt you can repeat my Hasegawa experiment with the Airfix kit - though I should warn you that it took me many weeks to get it right (most of the rivets ended up being applied twice), and involved transferring a fair amount of money from my account into HGW's. I like the result - particularly the way that some of the paint has abraded away to leave a silvery rivet showing, which happens on the real aircraft - but does it look better than a well-built (particularly, well-painted) Airfix example? I very much doubt it. So far the only area where I think Hasegawa out-performs Airfix is in the main rotor blades: Hasegawa's are moulded with in-built droop, and Airfix's are not (Hasegawa top, Airfix bottom) Having said that, the Airfix blades are beautifully thin, and it shouldn't be a big deal (famous last words!) to add an appropriate amount of droop during the build. I am not 100% convinced by Airfix's seats, either - they are way better than Hasegawa's (not least because Sikorsky seats are different), but on first sight they appear not to have the yellow seat pack liferafts on which our poor behinds were forced to sit for many hours at a time. Again, not insurmountable. I think (though old friends will no doubt smile, having heard it all before) that I will build this one almost entirely OOB; I say almost entirely because I'll need to add seat belts in any event. Strictly, the HAS1 had an earlier version of the Doppler underneath the nose (full disclosure; Luke the Airfix researcher pointed this out to me as one of the inevitable design compromises they had to make; I would have missed it), but I rather doubt I can be bothered to address this, not least because it will not be visible. The only other thing I will definitely have to do is to remove the strengthening plates at the transportation joint - these things, which are there on later Sea Kings but weren't there on the HAS1 (again, a design compromise, given that 3 of the 4 schemes had them). Sorry for blurred photo again; too close with my iPhone. So there you have it. Time to do some work, I guess. More soon Crisp

Good point. Because of the comprehensive interior in this kit, I reckon AEW2/ASaC7 is the least likely future boxing - they’d have to completely redo the interior, as well as the more obvious door mod and the colostomy bag. But pretty much any other (Westland) version is clearly possible in the engineering. Sikorsky versions, no. Another clue to future HAR3 / HC4 is that they’ve moulded both positions for the pressure refuelling point & provided a blanking plate for the one that doesn’t apply. The HAR3 & HC4 had it just behind the cargo door (because having it beneath the door, as on the ASW versions, would make it vulnerable to Royal Marine boots and/or SAR casualties). The ASW versions had it under the door so that it was directly below the rescue hoist; HIFR (helicopter in flight refuelling; you pick up a fuel hose from a ship with a foul deck [or even no flight deck at all - I’ve HIFR’d from a Belgian Weilingen class frigate, for example] & then hover alongside the port quarter taking on fuel, with the not inconsiderable weight of the hose taken by the hoist). Junglies & Crabs clearly didn’t think they needed HIFR, which seems reasonable. As frigate flight decks got bigger in preparation for the Merlin, HIFR kind of died out, but in its heyday we used it a lot; far better to take fuel from, say, a TA frigate in the deep screen rather than have to schlep all the way back to Mum & then all the way back again - we routinely sowed sonobuoy barriers 100+ miles away from the carrier.

As someone who made a (very small) contribution to the research into Airfix's new 1/48 Sea King, I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch event at Historic Helicopters near Chard yesterday and, like everyone there, I came away with a kit. I think it's going to be in the shops pretty soon (I seem to recall August being mentioned), but judging by the thread in The Rumourmonger yesterday there is a lot of interest in this kit, so I thought I'd build it ASAP. [Sorry, Ark Royal fans; back burner again for a while - but in truth my mojo has been massively dented in recent months because of this blasted court case, so I rather welcome a chance to get the old creative juices going again!] Long term BM members will already know that I have 'form' when it comes to 1/48 Sea Kings - specifically a long-running (and as yet unfinished) saga converting the Hasegawa 1/48 kit (until yesterday, the only game in town in this scale) into the HAS5 that I ditched in 1988 Though some "sprue shots" have already been posted in the Rumourmonger section, I will start with a full set: Sprue A, mostly the inner shell (Airfix have taken the same approach as they did with their excellent 1/48 Lynx kit, providing an inner box that sits inside the fuselage) The floor is particularly nicely done, I'd say, with the characteristic access panels to the fuel tanks etc faithfully rendered: The kit provides the parts to build an HAS1, HAS5 & HU5 (all the same airframe, XV666 - known throughout the Fleet Air Arm as "Damien") - you could also easily build an HAS2 provided you could access appropriate markings, and no doubt the after-market designers are busy as we speak. One of the real features of this kit is the fact that it has a full interior (Hasegawa's has absolutely nothing behind the two pilots' seats), so to allow the wide variation in internal fittings between the stages of Damien's life, the underside of this floor part is marked with numerous holes: ...and the instructions tell you what to remove for which version: Sprue B: Sprue C Sprue D - both metal & composite blades, the 6-bladed tail rotor (5-bladed on a different sprue), plus some of the main rotor head: Sprue E - sponsons, undercarriage & the "pit-head gear" (sonar winch) Sprue F - 5-bladed tail rotor, seats, underside of boat hull, more sonar stuff Sprue G - internals, mostly: Finally Sprue X for the clear parts: Lots of people have already been asking about future releases (HAR3 & HC4 in particular). The Airfix guys were predictably non-committal yesterday, but there are obvious indications that both 3 & 4 (and I suspect at least one "export versions" boxing) will follow in due course; notably the window openings in the fuselage halves, but also the fact that there are parts for the so-called "Commando step" (which was only fitted to the HC4) - the smaller "SAR step" as fitted to the HU5 is also provided. The Eagle-eyed among you might also have noticed these IR jammer parts on the clear sprue (sorry photo is a bit blurred!) - as far as I know these were only ever carried by the HC4 More follows once I have had mi lunch! Crisp

Sadly not; XV669 seems to have had a somewhat unlucky life. Joined 706 in 1970; engine flame out March 71; cargo door fell off into Falmouth Bay March 71; No 2 engine failed Nov 71; tried to take off from Blake with a lashing still attached June 76; then finally main rotor blade balance weights detached in flight and the resultant severe vibration meant the crew lost control and ditched 18 miles South of Portland Bill March 76. The crew survived and the fuselage was recovered, but there is no record it ever went anywhere near Gannet.

Yes, the HAS1 had 195, as did the HAS2; the 2 had uprated engines & transmission, 6-bladed tail rotor, “barn door” anti-FOD/ice shield, plus radio/avionics differences - and evolved a lot during its life (notably the early passive ASW era) before eventually emerging as the HAS5. They’re actually working on 2 HAR3s (that “Marine One” cab in the pictures is an HAR3 painted for a Netflix thing and the most recent Mission Impossible film), an HU5, 2 x HC4s and 2 x ex-Belgian Mk.48s - the latter being a kind of mixture of HU5 (Sea Searcher radar) and HAR3 (rear bubble windows, extra internal battery behind the RH pilot) with a very whizzy 2-channel digital AFCS that the UK MoD decided not to buy because they’d put their eggs into the Merlin basket by then. Yesterday is the first time I’ve seen a Mk.48 up close & personal. Oh, and they have a Whirly HAR10, 2 x Wessex HU5s & a Widgeon - plus a visiting Wasp. Rotary-wing heaven! The Airfix guys apparently LIDAR scanned and/or photographed and/or measured around 30 airframes during the design; the primary scan was a HU/HAS5 at HMS Sultan in Gosport. Understandably they were tactfully discrete about future releases yesterday, but from what I saw I’d say the only version that is unlikely in future is an AEW2/ASaC7, because of the interior. If it were just a case of adding a giant colostomy bag and changing the door, it would be easy, but since Airfix have gone down the full interior route that would require a major redesign, and I doubt there’s the market. So if AEW is your thing, Hasegawa is the only game in town. Later today I plan to start a WIP on the Airfix kit, and I’ll include comparisons with the Hasegawa (I still have 2 unbuilt, plus the 75% complete ZE419). The Reskit main rotor head that will surely follow in due course might even get ZE419 finished. I’ve known about the Airfix kit for about 18 months (I contributed in a very small way to the research) and had to keep schtum, so finally my hesitation in tackling my own 3D printed rotor head in order to get ZE419 finished might be more understandable!

In theory I totally agree about the raised rivets thing, but the technical challenge of getting them right would have been huge - just think of the slagging Airfix got for the few raised rivets on the tail of the 1/48 Sea Fury. Having seen the built examples & test shots close up, the recessed rivets look very convincing from anything except mega close distance. They also had to make decisions in all sorts of areas - for example, they decided (correctly in my view) to mould the strengthening plates by the tail transportation joint, on the grounds that 3 of the 4 schemes are after they were added to the real thing (HAS5 onwards) and it’s easier to remove them from the HAS1 than to add them convincingly…. assuming that bothers you. I plan to build this kit ASAP as an HAS1, so watch out for a WIP. If this doesn’t kick start my mojo, nothing will!

The Airfix guys have understandably kept their cards close to their chest, but from looking at the runners close up, engineering-wise I can’t see any reason why they won’t do an HAR3 & HC4 in future. AEW2/ASaC7 would need more work, but even that’s not impossible. Aussie, Belgian, Pakistani, Egyptian, Indian… lots of potential schemes / versions. No weapons or weapon carriers, both of which are understandable - over 350 parts even as it is. So plenty of opportunities for the after-market guys. The main rotor head (which anyone who has ever read my Hasegawa HAS5 build will know was a serious stumbling block) is very nicely done; way better than Hasegawa’s. Of course it lacks all the blade fold pipes and wiring, because that would be well beyond the capabilities of the injection molding tolerances - but the basis (spread & folded) is all there. And the interior looks superb (Hasegawa’s has nothing at all)

The Sikorsky & Westland Sea Kings have more differences than you might initially think

That might be (partly) my fault; I’ve been helping their research in a minor way, so have known about this for c.18 months but been sworn to secrecy. I’m at the launch event as I write, and will post photos as soon as I can.

Just been catching up for the first time in a while (my life has sadly been consumed by a court case vs my employers in recent months, which is why I have been so absent from BM). Even by your stellar standards the most recent update is extraordinary, Tony; BZ. Looking at the design of the Wasp in such forensic detail makes you realise how early in rotary-wing evolution the whole thing was. Were you ever to do a Lynx - which in design terms was only about 15 years later - you would see a massive leap from the Heath Robinson solutions to complex aerodynamic and engineering problems displayed in the Wasp to the far more elegant efforts of its replacement. The fact that the drive train / gearbox of the Lynx (with its revolutionary gearbox) lives on over 40 years later in the Wildcat (which is basically a Super-Duper Lynx with much more power and modern electronics) is testament to the original design. Your brass tripod solution to the weight of the gearbox etc is just genius. I am in awe. [Remind me; when does the design of the 1/32 Sea King commence?]

It comes to us all with age, sadly. Nice stripey thing; I might have to revisit my unreasoned “Meh” feeling about the Defiant, which I have always rather seen as a land-based Roc [i.e. a completely useless example of a pre-War theory (the turret fighter) that proved to be 100% hogwash]. Mind you, even the Sturgeon made a decent target tug, so the Defiant’s use as a war-fighting machine was still on the feeble side,

Excellent, though I really think you should seek medical advice about your starboard ear / head tentacle, Martian. It seems to have grown to an unfeasible size and shape. Thought of you yesterday; I am on hols in North Devon (a wonderful land, though one where connection to the interwebs is almost entirely unheard-of), and we visited a National Trust gaff called Arlington Court. The house and massive estate were donated to the NT by their last occupant, a lady whose Intended was killed in the first war. She seems to have had a thing about Zeppelins (and I’m not talking Jimmy Page), judging by the number of pieces of Zep fabric, “Zeppelin wire” and other mementoes that she kept in her own museum. No photos allowed, sadly. Pip pip

That confirms my previous impression; you truly are about as normal as your brother and sister (and father, for that matter). As I have observed before, that photo of him by the Whirly is uncanny; I showed it to Mrs Crisp and (since she wouldn’t immediately tell the difference between a Whirly 7 and a Sea King 5) she assumed it must be a photo of the junior family Observer from our 820 / Ark Royal days in the late-80s. Is he really wearing Mess Boots? They look suspiciously shiny (and free of laces) for flying boots…