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Odd looking helicopter


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I'm having a bit of a modelling sabatical at the moment, not a crisis of faith but just felt the need for a short break. That said, I have just finished a Testors 1/32 Kamen Husky that I picked up for a tenner at the excellent little shop at NELSAM in Sunderland. It's standard 70s fare, oversized rivets and minimal detail but presented no great challenge. There was a bit of warpage and flash but nothing you wouldn't expect on a kit this age. I had to do a bit of scratchbuilding to cover up some of the more obvious deficiencies but for the most part it's built OOB.

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Cheers, Liam

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How do both sets of rotors turn? It looks like one will stop the other.

They are sync'ed by a gearbox to stay 90 deg out of phase so that one is always getting out of the other's way as the other swings towards it. They rotate in opposite directions, so there is no rotor torque and no need for a tail rotor. Eat your heart out Mr. Sikorsky. The system was invented - as so often - by a German engineer who got swept up by the USA after the second war, name of Anton Flettner. His Fl 282 Kolibri (Hummingbird) was of similar design and the only helicopter type to be deployed and used operationally during the war.

Lovely model, does my heart good to see it.

Edited by steelpillow
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That,s a cracking job on an ancient kit,glad you grabbed a bargain at NELSAM got Tamiya,s 1/48 Skyray and Hasegawa,s 1/48 Hawker Typhoon for

£13 the pair a couple of weeks back when a dropped a few books in as a donation well worth popping in as they have some excellent donated kits in.

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Thanks everyone. In regard to the rotors, they are both offset at an angle and synchronised so that they pass over the hub of the opposite rotor in a scissoring motion. One of the interesting features of this kit is that it incorporates a gear mechanism to demonstrate this. 70s Airfix eat your heart out!

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The Huskies primary role was airbase fire rescue, and one of the co-incidental side effects of the egg-beater rotor system was that the down-draught created was very useful in beating back the flames allowing the Husky to get in close with its usual underslung fire extinguisher container.

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That is really nice! The heat staining on the huge exhaust especially. I used to have a book on hi-vis US aircraft which had excellent colour photos, one of them was one of these on a SAR mission. Those interlocking rotors do look strange, not sure any other chopper had those. By the way, I like the warning sign about only approaching from the front - it's only visible from the side anyway...

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