Dads203

I found a hard lead mechanical pencil just right for replicating the paint scratches on AFV’s it’s worth a look at but try on some scrap first rather than committing to the model. The narrow tip gives you great control and you can vary the pressure for heavy or light scratches. HTH Dan

Cracking work Roger, keep it up it’s really starting to take shape it’s amazing what you can scratch and fabricate for a few bits of plastic and as you know it gets very addictive Regards Dan

Cheers Dave, nice to see a good balanced review, warts and all fella so glad I kept my Airfix kit now but I was hoping this one was going to be a great kit. Dan

It looks like the main canopy can only be modelled in the closed position, how strange , I think I’ll keep my Airfix kit, shame as they missed a trick again.

Thank you so much chaps, really chuffed that you enjoyed the finished article, it’s my way of honouring the brave men and women who on a daily basis put their lives at risk so others can live. Being from Cornwall I used to see these aircraft on a daily basis and now that the type has been retired it feels like the county is missing something. I’m going to have a chat with my brother and see if I can get a 771 NAS badge to add to the base. I’m sure he has a spare, he served for a few years on the Sqn and also flew in Rescue 193 on a few occasions. I’ve got a Wessex and Whirlwind in the stash which are earmarked for 771 Sqn SAR cabs from Culdrose at some point, they will both get the same level of detail as the HU5. Regards Dan

Got to agree with the other comments , that’s looking superb fella

I must agree, it’s a ND waiting to happen in my book, the ill fitting helmet didn’t help as it slipped down over her eyes and the general uncomfortable look she had would make me very nervous if I had to work with her. A boat load load of further weapon training and a lesson or two on how to sort out PLCE and helmet. Any service person who has to carry a live weapon as part of their role no matter how often should have a very high level of training and be very confident and skilled in its use.

Steering units are starting to look the business Roger, keep it up

Cheers chaps. It's been a while since I've been able to do anything on the 43, Mrs Dads has had me painting rooms, snatched an hour today and scratch built the SCRA(T) whip antenna and base. It's close but not perfect, I turned up base on my Dremel, this took a few attempts to get rightish The rest is lead wire, plastic stock, small bore stainless tubing, brass rod and wire insulation. I might have another crack at it TBH and see if I can do better. Cheers Dan

Must be RM thing Just stamping their authority on the lesser weapon experienced types, we always called it the Gimpy

Thanks for the like and comments chaps So I've replaced the bolts and tidied up the box a bit, welds added and I just have to scratch the actual antenna mount and the coax outlet on the top. The whip antenna base looks like this And the elevated antenna that bolts on top of a 12m mast, this gets stored on two brackets that sit above the exhaust so again I'll scratch build these. Cheers all Dan

The next armoured box is the SCRA(T) Single Channel Radio Access (Terminal ) antenna housing, this is basically what the boffins developed the GSM mobile phone network from years before the public even heard of mobile phones. It's part of the Ptarmigan secure radio network system and my old wagon carried one. All 436's had the armoured box but very few carried the kit. The antenna base unit (BAE:- Base Antenna Element) looked more like a US Army spring loaded unit than the Clansman base unit, it had a 2m whip which was slightly thicker than a Clansman whip. I've also filled in the shovel bracket holes as they were removed on most 436's, not all of them but 09EA90 had them removed. I'm going to replace the bolts on the cover, they are a tad to proud so I'll punch some new ones out. Cheers for looking Dan

Cheers Ant, I've used them in the past and they are not bad, I need to find 6 of them for the 436 but I reckon I'll be able to cobble them together. I might even have some of the AA mounts kicking about somewhere. Dan

One more Clansman era mod done, It the armoured forward VHF antenna base. This took a while to build, I used the kit coax port which I removed from the upper hull very carefully, Only another two more to make for the rear. The actual antenna base will need to be modified as its a much later version that we had fitted, the one I've used had a wingnut to clamp the whip section. Cheers for looking in. Dan

Cracking show of scratch building once more Kev Its going to be good judging from the start of the project.