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Bill..note that the rounded channel under the sponsons doesn't go all the way along to the fuselage. It stops roughly level with the inner undercarriage bay wall. Quite obvious in the above picture.

300' winch started to appear in 1977. I cannot remember seeing the 'plain' looking one at all on the Leuchars cabs or the couple of SAR fit 72 cabs I've worked with. I clearly remember the 120 feet of wire and we had a bag with a 200' webbing attachment which would be attached to the hook if we needed anything longer. I've never used that so can't comment further. Go with the clunkier one..it suits a Wessex !

The top one should be dark sea grey (or EDSG?) There will be a couple of Fleet Air Arm bods along shortly and they probably know more

RAF Blue Grey.BS633. Best example I've found is here: https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/colourcoats-sea-british/products/acrn19-raf-blue-grey-bs633 The Wessex in British service was never painted in Oxford Blue.

Sublime John,just sublime.

Don't tell everyone or I'll be inundated with requests. Let the truth be known,I've just finished a nip of a 21 year old 'Jura' so won't be near a cooker. There's only two left in the bottle so I might just be a complete crawler and save one for Mrs Martian. As it is now £150 a bottle the likelihood of me having any more is up there with the Airfix 1/48 Scimitar.

Thanks Bill,I hadn't seen them. Mine is all closed up now and 2 week's work is invisible! I put a beam in for the monkey harness like they have in the Danish ones. Don't tell anybody. Mind you with long tweezers it could come out. The blue waterproof floor cover will do an excellent job of hiding the gap at the door.

Italeri based their model on this one. I'm halfway through doing an Algerian SAR one using the HC3 as a starting point. 128 modifications (excluding the different interior.) Luckily the Navy one doesn't have the added panels on the boom and ramp section or you may have come across some new words!

I suggest that this is just a fuel tank with the white colour and light combination giving a false impression of a more angular nose.. I haven't found any other photos of white tanks but plenty of them in blue showing that the nose and tail are the same blunt rounded shape. I doubt if it is an AS store. Yes it could fit the pylon but what's the point as the SAR cabs had the gubbins removed from inside the cabin. This photo of the lighter blue Australian one shows the tank a bit better than the dark blue of the RN ones.

3/4 of the way down here : http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/19/t/89086.aspx?page=3 Mind you little rectangles of tinfoil brushed with Klear tinted with food dye was how I did mine an a Blackhawk

Ah,,sorry ..must get new specracles! Perfect example.

Down like you show them. I've never seen them kept up. They moved up with your body weight as you climbed up and went down again when there was no weight on them. Need somebody who worked on them (Hendie or Heloman ?) to say if they could be fastened up. The hole is visible though,especially from the cabin looking up. Perhaps a black decal to give the impression of it ?

You can sleep easy tonight Bill because if first class post is up to scratch a transfer sheet and a bag of greeblies should arrive at Chez Perdu in the morning. I didn't put in the gun or that great big underslung load frame as I thought you'd better do some of the work I seem to remember a quite prominent white painted rail at the observer's position. EDIT. Found photos

Are you going to bother with the hole under the seats? You could climb up from the cabin into the cockpit and the seat base tilted up. In SAR,the Nav normally flew in the left hand seat until arrival at the scene then he would climb down and take up duty as the winch operator.

To be fair its not that obvious. Don't worry folks..he's got a spare blade

That's two of us then so I looked back through the thread and it appears that the SH cabs with the winch fitted have the hook with the ring. I can't find a photo of an operational SAR cab with that hook though. The ones that have it seem to be in museums. Was there a facility for the nav to blow the cable too? I ask as I was splattered with cordite residue because I was standing outside on the edge of the door photographing the Tighnabruaich type D lifeboat when he blew the cable. No intercom discussion until after the event. A type D can accelerate faster initially than a Wessex and on that occasion he took off with the winchman on board but still attached. The cable caught on the bracket for the flotation gear gas bottle and got very tight and couldn't be winched out to retain the slack. Fear was that if released at the boat end it would have shot up into the rotors. Some bang it makes! Learned later that lifeboat helmsman got sacked as he'd been drinking. Another winch story just popped into mind. When washing the cable at Connel det,after a couple of lifeboat exercises we found that it had three broken strands so we declared u/s. Tech guys got busy and new winch was readied at Leuchars. On returning to the aircraft discovered that groundcrewman who dealt with those bits had removed the winch and it was in a bin bag in the cabin. He told the pilot that it would save time at Leuchars and save weight on the way back too. Not sure if he was joking about the weight bit.

I'll check if I have one and get back to you. EDIT. Yes I've got one spare.

Long legal saga behind that lot Pete. There was a fatal accident (https://www.caa.govt.nz/Accidents_and_Incidents/Accident_Reports/ZK-HVK_Fatal_12Feb2001.pdf) way back and then the carry on with the ex-RAF batch. T The CAA in NZ grounded them in 2017. Lots of reading if you Google heli-logging New Zealand.

Way back in the early seventies, Alan Laird and I crawled all over her at a Prestwick airshow. I'll need to chase him up for the photographs as it's on my list too. He drew up a set of 1/72 plans which I can send you if you wish.

Not on an S2 though unfortunately. This release will be eagerly awaited by many I'm sure. Glad that it is coming out in proper colours first (despite that light on the nose undercarriage leg.) although they do say the colour scheme may change.

In the first photo you can see that she has only a small window. You need to click the link to Airliners site. She was only a civvie for a couple of months with Airworks for radar trials over Norway. When she reverted to military markings she would have had roundels as well as the serial number.

Just one in front of door. I assume you've seen this? Are you going to sort the seat backs?

Not unless you really want to!

See also my reply in Cold War.

This photo shows RP468 as G-ALUH . It returned to its military markings in October 1949. https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/airliners/3/8/4/2373483.jpg?v=v40 She was used for radar trials and this is possibly one of the aerials under the wing.