bianfuxia

Here is the kit - they mostly come in these plastic bags except for the twin-pack Japanese one which came in a box with cool cartoon box art. I still haven't started but I will soon. This decal sheet is for the USN 66 helicopter involved in the space program in the 60s, as well as a NASA version and Marine One (the President's helicopter). The sheet is indicative of the high quality of the other sheets I have, too. Each kit comes with two noses - one with the intake cover common to later Sea Kings. Each also comes with two variants of the side sponsons or landing gear. Some kits came with the larger alternative radomes, too.

Just a quick update from the flight deck. After a few frustrating efforts I have rebuilt the two Sea Kings - the parts broke when they came off the sprue because that clear plastic is so brittle. Then, of course, they also flew all over the workbench out of my tweezers too. But I got there. That's just the first coat of white on the Sea Kings. The underside will be light grey. For the Chinook and Cobra, I'll use a fine black pen to make the little black stripes. Slowly getting there.

Haha - ok if you like! I think I can probably get at least one of them done, let's see!

Well great minds think roughly alike! The Belgian cammo version is one of the three I plan to build, though I will use the more modern radome style which came in one of these kits. That's the sort of large flat round one as opposed to the little dome shown in these pictures. Like this (image free to use from wikicommons with this tag: © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons The other two are going to be the two colourful Japanese ones - I guess I like the colourful options! I do like the German SAR one, but I'm going with the Japanese one for the dark grey/orange because I like that it was part of the Japanese Antarctic survey, as you can see from the box top of that kit by googling Sweet JMSDF Sea King - there's a nice cartoon style drawing of it (sorry, I can't find the box top to photograph). And, as noted, I will also do the RAN version and USN 66. That leaves no real reason to do the grey/white JMSDF version, and the white NASA one is kind of boring, and the all-green one? Well, I live in DC and see it, and more than enough other helicopters, pounding around the city at low altitude at all hours and you know what, it's just about killed my interest in helicopters! I see Marine One (or its identical siblings) more than I'd like to; also regularly (like 10 times a day) see a lot of Hueys (or I guess they're 212s), those Dauphin things the Coast Guard has once or twice a day, and fairly often, maybe once a fortnight, one to three Blackhawks in formation. Once I saw some AH-64s. And these are all at about 50 feet above the roof of the 6-7 storey buildings around here. Low and loud. I never thought I'd say it, being a big plane fan, but they are really annoying! Anyway, off to the workbench soon. thanks for the input!

Hello, I was in the last flying boat GB with a 1/144 PBY-5 - sadly I didn't finish it in the GB but I did finish it and now it sits on a stand on my Mum & Dad's piano, painted up in the markings of mum's father's aircraft from a mission over the South Pacific in 1943 (the plane that is not the piano). As I am almost finished my build in one of the other current GBs, I figured I might have another shot at the Flying Boats one. So I am going to build one or maybe two of these sweet little Sea Kings from the appropriately named Japanese brand Sweet. I have five of these, though two are too far along to join a GB. Here are the colour schemes - I've already decided for sure to do the USN 66 one, but not for this build because unless I can spray, I can't get much of a finish with white. And present living arrangements don't allow me to spray. That maybe rules out the RAN version, too, for which I will also reserve one kit, although the white area is smaller. Of the remaining three, I can do any of the following. I'll post a pic of the kit itself once I get started. Interested in your suggestions, though I hasten to add, this is a cheerocracy, not a democracy (Bring it On reference, for those who wonder WTF - haha). Looking forward to getting started - these are awesome little kits and relatively quick builds.

hello, does a Sikorsky Sea King fit into the GB?

Looking good so far, and +1 for Bestfong - what a great company! I have several of their sheets (I did a 1/200 C-130 and I also have sheets for the Yemen conflict F-5 flown by Taiwanese pilots and also for some ROCAF F-86).

Since my last post I've painted the radomes and will put them on at the next opportunity, thus more or less finishing the ship. But before I go into Parliament and brag about my unprecedented on-time, on-budget naval procurement program, this thing needs some helicopters. That program, let's call it Project Sea King, got off to a more typical Defence start, inasmuch as the procured aircraft can't fly and need repairs before even entering service. These Trumpeter Sea Kings are really nice, but they are moulded in clear plastic which is really brittle. Both of the helicopters I cut off the sprue snapped at the tail-to-tailfin joint, both lost the right-side little connecting arm thing for the wheel sponson (which are separate parts), and one of them lost its tailwheel too. Also, both suffered a bit on the top of the air intakes as I tried to clean up the mess left from the connection to the sprue. So that was ...fun. I spent a while last night with tweezers and magnifying glass rebuilding the chopper you see on the deck; the one lying on the mat in front still has to be rebuilt. The Chinook, meanwhile, has a first coat of brown and later I will give it some green to get it looking like a JGSDF Chinook - I used to have all the correct modern Japanese colours in Mr Color but I couldn't ship enamel paints so I will just have to make do with what I can find in my collection of Vallejo acrylics. Also I realize this would look pretty good with some PE railings - I have a stash somewhere but haven't found them. So one day I might come back to that. But for now, I'm in the home stretch.

Maybe not too much new to see in this picture but I've added the lifeboats, the ASROC, the radar, the various other grey things on the top and the lattice or framework thing in front of the bridge. Next is to paint all the radomes white, install them, and deal with the helicopter situation.

Cool - I love these 1/200 Hercules kits (I have built three and have another, cough cough, three still to go)! What paint did you use for that scheme? One reason I haven't done that scheme yet is because I'm not sure what paint to use. Great build!

That's super nice of you! Thanks! But I just logged on to post these shots of what I just finished tonight... But thank you again, I do appreciate it. I'm getting fairly close to wrapping this up. I also touched up the paintwork and painted up a lot of the remaining small components - a bunch of radomes, the guns and launchers, and there are some small radars and other bits and pieces too. Next thing is to put all those on, and try to find the box where I kept my 1/700 spare parts - in there I have several Sea Kings.

That's a great build of a quirky subject. I like the orange missiles. I have to say, the ground crew on the real thing must have lost interest by the time they got to painting the words Bangladesh Air Force - really looks like they just phoned it in with those stencils! You did a great job of this plane, well done!

Sorry about the poor quality photos. When (if) I finish it, I'll make a better effort for the gallery shot. I mainly built late at night and don't have much energy left for elaborate photo setups.

Built the mast tonight - very fiddly. Of course, when I finally got it finished I suddenly thought, hmm, I probably should have pre-painted that thing. Oh well. Slowly getting there now. Next steps are mainly going to be touching up all the messy paint errors. I can't readily locate my 1/700 Seakings (I have the Trumpeter set) as most of my stuff is still in storage from our move. JMSDF didn't get Seahawks til 91 as far as I can tell, so I guess the Chinook will be paying a visit...