Qatari Sea King w/ Exocets --FINISHED and loaded for bear....

[thorfinn]

Have had great fun following Andrew's gorgeous Sea King build, so I thought I'd throw mine in as well.

Fell in love with photos of Qatar Emiri Air Force's Exocet-armed Sea King/Commandos in the old World Air Power Journal during the Gulf War, and it's only taken me 2+ decades to get around to it as a project. Kit is Revell Germany's lovely Sea King Mk. 41 w/Skua missiles. Some of the bits I need (like the six-blade tail rotor) are included in the kit as unused parts, much is being scratch-built. Exocets are coming from the Italeri 1/72 NATO ordinance set.

This is what I'm going for, courtesy of Planespotters.net:

http://www.planespotters.net/Aviation_Photos/photo.show?id=212004

Been hacking away at this one for a few weeks now, but the only photos so far are of the interior. Cockpit is stock kit with "spares" Eduard color harnesses added; aft cabin (which will not be highly visible) has generic frame, stringer and wiring detail added from styrene strip and rod, thread, wire, stretched sprue and assorted leftovers.

All questions, comments, or accusations of diminished capacity cheerfully received. I'll try to get some photos of more recent work up this weekend.

Edited September 18, 2015 by thorfinn

[moaning dolphin]

Always good to see the mighty King, and a version thats not that common. Looking forward to this progressing. Lovelly interior as well.

Keep up the good work

Bob

[perdu]

I love the Sea King muchly, the Commando maybe even muchlier

Watching to enjoy this one, I got a few pictures of the Commando at Bruntingthorpe a few weeks ago so I'll be ready for the promised Airfix one

[thorfinn]

Thanks for the interest, gents.

Since the Qatari birds are relatively smooth and unburdened by excess of bumps and protrusions, basic fuselage work started with removing several bumps and attachment points molded into the Revell parts, for unused antennae and chaff dispensers. There are currently quite a few photos of the QEAF Commandos online, so sorting the number and location of fuselage windows was pretty straightforward: I had to cut out the pre-marked location for the port aft "bubble," then do a little filling and rescribing where "optional" window cutout locations showed through as ever-so-slightly sunken areas on the exterior.

One set of kit sponsons were usable, but required the removal of the molded-in floatation bags, and their replacement with the smaller "thumbtack" style popout float housings. Trickier were the tiny sensor domes (anti-missile warning, I assume?) tucked in behind the float housings; lots of photos online, but no good closeups, so I had to study and restudy all the different angles, then do a "best guess." This is what I came up with:

Lacking anything suitable in the spares box, I made the small domes by shaping half-spheres at the end of sprue sections of the proper diameter, cutting them off, then carefully joining (and finishing) the halves into a full sphere. The float housings were made up from laminated sheet and rod.

Also visible in the photos above is the second nav light, added to the rear of each sponson, fitted to all the QEAF Commandos.

I used the kit hoist pod, but had to redo the mountings to match the higher-positioned version which the QEAF birds share (I believe) with the various RN and RAF marks. Also added the spot and the door lamp from sprue and styrene bits, The photoos below show the assembly just pressed in place to test-fit, but without any of the wiring connectors matched up to their little holes, so it looks a bit "spidery" at this point.

Last up, the cabin boarding step, which I may or may not use. Haven't decided to mount one Exocet or two. (I'm pretty sure one is a more standard load, but two would look cool.) If the missile is mounted on the cabin door side, the step is removed to make room.

Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks for following along.

Edited August 8, 2015 by thorfinn

[modelling minion]

Great choice of subject Thorfinn.

The Sea King/Commando looks great in either of the Qatari colour schemes and it is one I have wanted to do myself for a while. I used to overhaul the Gnome engine until about 7 years ago and loved working on it, I even got to go out to Qatar to fix one once. I was able to have a good look around the main hangar at Doha airport and it had 4 Sea Kings in it as well as some Mirage 2000's, Alpha Jets and Gazelles but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any photos, seriously frustrating!

How are you going to replicate the markings? I was really disappointed when Xtradecal didn't include a Qatari bird on their new decals sheet and filled it with lots of the same boring green scheme and a junglie (both of which are included in the new Airfix kits markings), granted you do get an Egyptian one but even that is quite boring and easily replicated from the spares box.

I shall be following your build with great interest.

Craig.

[thorfinn]

Great choice of subject Thorfinn.

The Sea King/Commando looks great in either of the Qatari colour schemes and it is one I have wanted to do myself for a while. I used to overhaul the Gnome engine until about 7 years ago and loved working on it, I even got to go out to Qatar to fix one once. I was able to have a good look around the main hangar at Doha airport and it had 4 Sea Kings in it as well as some Mirage 2000's, Alpha Jets and Gazelles but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any photos, seriously frustrating!

How are you going to replicate the markings? I was really disappointed when Xtradecal didn't include a Qatari bird on their new decals sheet and filled it with lots of the same boring green scheme and a junglie (both of which are included in the new Airfix kits markings), granted you do get an Egyptian one but even that is quite boring and easily replicated from the spares box.

I shall be following your build with great interest.

Craig.

Thanks for the reply, Craig. I can imagine your frustration at not being able to take photos so close to the real thing.

As to the markings, I also had hopes that some aftermarket producer would turn out a set, but it never happened. From the time I started looking (when I first went online about 2001), it took almost ten years of searching to finally turn up an image that was clear and complete enough to use to be able to make my own decals. I finally found a perfectly-registered shot of the tail boom of one of QEAF's Gazelles showing the (nearly complete) Arabic inscription. From there I was able to "bleach out" the background color, fix and tweak the image a bit until it looked right, then make up decal artwork (with a variety of sizes, since I plan to do the Gazelle as well) and print them out on my PC's printer. I've actually had the codes and inscriptions printed out and ready to go for a few years now, finally decided I'd better get on the stick.

I'll probably do mine as QA33, since it's one of the most-photographed of the missile-carrying Mk 3s, and I love the pale sand/grey camouflage.

Edited August 8, 2015 by thorfinn

[Antoine]

That's some piece of work.

Great attention to details, that's just beautiful.

[thomastmcc]

nice work..

[thorfinn]

Thanks to all for taking time to comment.

These are my home-made decals. (I may need to make up another set of numbers, some are kind of smeary.) Also working on stencils, missile markings and such.

Edited August 9, 2015 by thorfinn

[phildagreek]

Looks good so far.

[thomastmcc]

great work on the decals..

[Mountain goat]

Great work. Were those decals printed on a standard printer?

Jay

[modelling minion]

Those decals look great Thorfinn!

I might need to get a set from you when I get around to building mine!

Great work.

Craig.

[perdu]

Great work on the decals

I cant read the writing but boy oh boy I can see the quality

Nice job altogether, the Sea King is looking rather elite too, I love the detail work around the sponsons etc

[thorfinn]

Great work. Were those decals printed on a standard printer?

Jay

Yes. It's an HP F4280 All-in-one deskjet with Baremetal Foil Co.'s "Experts Choice" decal paper.

Those decals look great Thorfinn!

I might need to get a set from you when I get around to building mine!

Great work.

Craig.

Thanks, Craig. Assuming everything works as it should, I might have spare set for you.

Great work on the decals

I cant read the writing but boy oh boy I can see the quality

Nice job altogether, the Sea King is looking rather elite too, I love the detail work around the sponsons etc

I can't read 'em either. I just take it on faith that it doesn't really say something like "Truckers Use Lower Gears"!

Thanks to all for the kind words.

[heloman1]

Great work, I do like your decals.

Colin

[thorfinn]

Thank you, Colin.

Next up: MISSILES & LAUNCHERS

The Exocets are from the old (but good) Italeri #177 US/NATO Aircraft Armament set:

Not a lot of detail, and some of that was lost while cleaning up the seams, but I restored some of the antenna channels with thin styrene strip, then plugged the recessed single exhaust and drilled the proper double exhausts as per online photos.

Detail of the launcher pylons is hard to see in photos (since they always seem to be painted black), so I did simple strips from laminated styrene with the characteristic “dog-tooth” at the exhaust end, and drilled a few access holes here and there to make them look functional.

Figuring out details for the missile mounts was tricky, since the Qatari birds seem to have launcher mountings unlike most other Exocet-carrying Sea Kings I’ve been able to find in photos. The mounts are just two triangular braces on each side of the lower fuselage, with varying configurations of small stabilizing struts to brace the mounts and the launching pylon itself.

I scratched my head for a while over the exact configuration, then just went ahead and built the “nearest thing” out of bits of rod and channel, trying to maintain the compact look of the real things. Little wedge “stops” helped me dial in the proper height and distance from the fuselage. The protruding bits on the down-angled struts fit the launching pylons themselves for what seems (at this point) to be a clean fit. I will add the wiring harness on each rear mount later.

I ‘m using a set of Eduard pre-cut masks for the first time, and, while by no means perfect, they made covering up the big glazing up front much easier than the old way of cutting tiny strips:

And last—since I couldn’t find anything close to the proper English/Arabic stencils in the right colors—I studied photos and did up a batch in MS Paint, which I’ll reduce (a whole lot) and print as decals. They won’t really be readable, but I wanted them to look “sort of” convincing, so I used a “lorem ipsum” application online to generate bits of fake Arabic text. It should look a little bit more authentic than my crude attempts at hand-painting the same.

That’s it for now. Thanks for following along, and have a lovely weekend one and all.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[thorfinn]

Nice job on the decals - but before you print them, don't forget to add the Arabic part of the tail rotor Danger -> panels....

Already made those up on another sheet--but I appreciate the heads-up! Thanks for checking in.

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[MarkdipXV711]

Excellent work..love the scratch building for the conversion. Added to my list of followed builds 👍

[thorfinn]

I didn't see them on the preceding sheet, so thought you may have overlooked them - it's amazing sometimes how something that's glaringly obvious afterwards can be missed!

Actually...unless you have X-ray vision (which I'm not necessarily ruling out, you understand, it's all good), they're not in the preceding photo. They're on the back of the 3x5 card shown (along with some 1st-batch, slightly off-center roundels--which is why I didn't show them )-

Excellent work..love the scratch building for the conversion. Added to my list of followed builds

Many thanks. (Your own work sets the bar pretty high!)

[heloman1]

Great work on the weapons supports and the decals.

Colin

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[modelling minion]

This just gets better and better!

Your home made decals look absolutely superb and will really help to finish her off.

I think you have done a great job on the Exocet launchers and their attachments, very convincing. It's a real pity i wasn't allowed to use my camera out there or I could have solved some of the questions you have had, but if I had I would probably still be out there but in much less comfortable surroundings!

Keep up the great work.

Craig.