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Airfix Seaking HC.4


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772NAS used Wessex HU5 retaining the green later using red.white.blue rounders 620-629 codes in white. They were used in the SAR role & fleet training support role PORTLAND thus keeping their green scheme.

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The Sea King Hc4 was in the process of receiving a RWR update at the time of the first gulf war thus there were different fits early aircraft had no fit they were upgraded with lower nose orange crop & a oblong box with the fit in front off the rear wheel side IR Lanterns satnav box ontop of the tail rotor housing. Two follow on aircraft were fitted with the upper nose MAWS lazer ring & long boxes either side behind the bulges window. This fit became standard fit post war

Edited by Grizzly
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Hey Grizzly, great great info !!! That oblong box for the first case (short Orange Crop lower nose antennas) - is it the box just behind the "commando step" on the right side of the fuselage ?

IR lanterns - definetly NOT visible on any of my GW pics ...

SATNAV box - is it the square box just behind the small blade aerial in the middle of the upper tail rotor housing ?

all airframes which has the small Orange Crop lower nose antennas has same small antennas on both sides of the fuselage just under the chaff/flare launchers (except ZA296, ZA310 (that one even without the SATNAV) and ZD479) - are they the rear hemisphere part of the front hemisphere Orange Crop antennas ?

thanks for your patience, I will have more questions regarding other antennas for sure :)

Best regards

Jakub

EDIT: from some pics it seems the rear stabiliser in the kit is shorter and deeper - is that true ? or are my eyes failing ? ..

EDIT again: only some US airframes were converted with longer stabiliser thanks to upgrading engines ... ok, my mistake :)

Edited by Jakub Cikhart
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Hey Grizzly, great great info !!! That oblong box for the first case (short Orange Crop lower nose antennas) - is it the box just behind the "commando step" on the right side of the fuselage ?

IR lanterns - definetly NOT visible on any of my GW pics ...

SATNAV box - is it the square box just behind the small blade aerial in the middle of the upper tail rotor housing ?

all airframes which has the small Orange Crop lower nose antennas has same small antennas on both sides of the fuselage just under the chaff/flare launchers (except ZA296, ZA310 (that one even without the SATNAV) and ZD479) - are they the rear hemisphere part of the front hemisphere Orange Crop antennas ?

thanks for your patience, I will have more questions regarding other antennas for sure :)

Best regards

Jakub

EDIT: from some pics it seems the rear stabiliser in the kit is shorter and deeper - is that true ? or are my eyes failing ? ..

EDIT again: only some US airframes were converted with longer stabiliser thanks to upgrading engines ... ok, my mistake :)

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Got mine today, looks nice. Couple of bits broken of the sprue as typical Airfix, small holes to fill where it has come away from the piece. Had a look at images, and doesn't seem to be any regularity, but can any expert confirm whether the white/green artic cammo is fairly random, or is there a pattern?

Cheers

Arctic white/darb olive patern is random.

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It is from 772NAS Portland who had six ZF Reg no aircraft. One is on the xtradecal sheet regards Len

772 received ZF118 to ZF124 but would swap these out with Yeovilton aircraft as required.

They were standard mk4 but with sar kit inside.

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faakeith, can you say what the SAR kit consisted of? Presumably it included a plastic floor sheet to hold sea water from persons hauled out of salt water as well as a stretcher and various medical stores.

I was going through my decal bank and I had an inkling I had an old decal sheet featuring an HC4. It turned out I had Model Decal's Sheet Number 66. This has high-viz markings for ZA297 from 1981 (see below) as well as markings for a low-viz Falklands bird.

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/000333326L.html

The decals are quite old but hopefully they will work. Would this helicopter have been fitted with the pintle-mounted machine gun in the doorway at some point? Thanks.

BM.

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The SAR kit would have been a waterproof floor covering (seatray) plus streatcher, medical kits, highline's, strops etc etc.....

The white high viz markings are pre falklands. After that they are black.

All have plate and bracket for gpmg.

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Thanks to invaluable help of Grizzly I was able to rebuild my Gulf War Airfix Sea King HC.4 how-to page, so, if you want, check it here http://dstorm.eu/pages/en/gb/seaking_airfix.html

The page contains table of config for RWRs, antennas, camo etc.

Also, there is a part of how to "tweak" the Airfix kit to make it look correct for the Gulf war era.

Feel free to post comments/updates/corrections.

Best regards

Jakub

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The SAR kit would have been a waterproof floor covering (seatray) plus streatcher, medical kits, highline's, strops etc etc.....

The white high viz markings are pre falklands. After that they are black.

All have plate and bracket for gpmg.

It will also need the radar operaters console & seat with the canvas tent around it .

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772 had codes ZF120-ZD124 &ZD625.

They took over the SAR and HDS role from Wessex v in 1988.

Sea king 4 have never had orange crop or orange reaper.

During gulf 1 they were fitted with prophet and later upgraded to prophet2 .later changed to sky guardian 2000.

So those big boxes are sky guardian boxes.the sensors were not always fitted but boxes remain.

I could answer more questions but depends what you want to know.SK4 mods are particularly complex when it comes to fit.

Fear god honour the king

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Jakub,

Thanks for asking.visually no difference between prophet 1 and 2 ...pretty sure of that.

Ok Granby (gulf 1) introduced a lot of mods sandfilters m130 chaff and flare Trimble GPS and more

.will have to dig out phots and remind my self.By the way there is a sensor in each quadrant.

Cant remember when ALQ 157 jammers were introduced certainly by the time Bosnia kicked off.Same with MAWS must have been around same time.

Sky guardian hmm early 2000s ...clue is in the name.

The lump behind the foot step/kick plate was Decca navigator antenna they were removed when Decca became redundant.....Google that one.

Post mid 2000 s not really able to comment since the kit is still in service on other platforms sure you will understand.

There are a lot of pictures around though

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Great answer, thanks a lot. Grizzly said the old, small antennas, were "Orange Crop" and the newer, longer, were "Mores". I am attaching two pictures with some "???" - can you please look at them and tell me what is what ? Thanks a lot.

EDIT:

I updated the pictures with info from "junglierating", here is the description:

EDIT 2: info updated with help from "faakeith" :) big thanks !

Upper pic: (ZA314)
1 - front Prophet RWR
2 - HF aerial
3 - lower UHF
4 - DME
5 - rear Prophet RWR
6 - VOR/ILS
7 - upper UHF/VUHF
8 - Trimble GPS
9 - V tac
10 - I band transponder
Lower pic: (ZD479)
1 - I band transponder
2 - V tac
3 - VOR/ILS
4 - M-130 chaff/flare
5 - fuel dump
6 - VAIR
7 - DME
8 - "towel rack" ADF antenna
9 - Decca navigation unit
10 - Trimble GPS
11 - upper UHF/VUHF
12 AN/ALQ-157 mount

za314_antennas.jpgzd479_antennas.jpg

Edited by Jakub Cikhart
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Ok

Pic 1 L to R

Prophet

HF aerial mast...no aerial cable fitted

Lower V/UHF

Upper V/UHF

Prophet

And hmm?

Pic 2 L to R

I band transponder

V tac

Hmm?

Upper VUHF

M130

By tail oleo is fuel dump

V Mar

Decca

Hammer frame

And the towel rail underneath is your ADF. Or if bored tune in to LW.

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Junglierating,

Re you pics above, ZA314 item 4 is possibly DME. 6 is Vorils (left or right of runway) 7 is upper UHF / VUHF.

ZD479 item 6 is possibly VAIR

772 were issued with 6 x HCMK4 ZF118 to ZF124 with these rotating through Yeovilton MU as required.

Think I may have part of the AP that has the aerials in it.

I was on 845 and deployed to GW1 and was on 772, so any questions fire away.

Edited by faakeith
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