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Sikorsky S-61N G-BEWL


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Right then. My dad says (via Facebook messenger - will show him progress when he visits here on Saturday :) )

that the Penzance BAH S-61Ns had carpets to seem all posh for the paying passengers. The North Sea ones at the time carried freight quite a lot as well as employees of oil & gas companies, so they virtually always flew with wooden panels laid over the aircraft's metal floor (so that relatively beefy industrial stuff with square corners could be laid on the floor without denting/puncturing and otherwise knackering it). These floor panels had metal cups in them and the seats attachments located over these cups to clamp the panels down.

 

I don't yet know if these panels were bare plywood or painted - he's put his phone down and hasn't read the last message. 😴

 

Also, he's reminded me that the rearmost single seat was removed when the "dinghy door" was fitted. This was the door on the port side at the rear. Initially this was just an emergency exit with a window, but early on these were replaced by a door without a window but an inflatable dinghy inside instead. This door bulged inwards into the cabin to contain the sizable dinghy. I'm not quite sure if the gap I've already left there is where the seat would have been, or if I need to toss the one in front of the existing gap - but I'll find out.

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RN Lynxes had the same deal with a plywood floor with metal cups inlaid, used tp protect the cabin floor.  No oily workers there, though (unless you count a couple of Grubbers per flight)

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Are those brown panels on the etch set not supposed to represent the wooden floor panels you guys are discussing?

 

maybe the side panels are also for sidewall protection and used on some machines

 

Anyway I received an early Christmas present the other day

 

The parts to make an S-61N for myself

 

Thanks to 'a benefactor'

 

Probably get some done whilst watching yours

 

Mine draws heavily on the Airfix mag article which I've has stashed for years ready for this build

 

yeehaw

Edited by perdu
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2 hours ago, SovereignHobbies said:

Right then. My dad says (via Facebook messenger - will show him progress when he visits here on Saturday :) )

that the Penzance BAH S-61Ns had carpets to seem all posh for the paying passengers. The North Sea ones at the time carried freight quite a lot as well as employees of oil & gas companies, so they virtually always flew with wooden panels laid over the aircraft's metal floor (so that relatively beefy industrial stuff with square corners could be laid on the floor without denting/puncturing and otherwise knackering it). These floor panels had metal cups in them and the seats attachments located over these cups to clamp the panels down.

 

I don't yet know if these panels were bare plywood or painted - he's put his phone down and hasn't read the last message. 😴

 

Also, he's reminded me that the rearmost single seat was removed when the "dinghy door" was fitted. This was the door on the port side at the rear. Initially this was just an emergency exit with a window, but early on these were replaced by a door without a window but an inflatable dinghy inside instead. This door bulged inwards into the cabin to contain the sizable dinghy. I'm not quite sure if the gap I've already left there is where the seat would have been, or if I need to toss the one in front of the existing gap - but I'll find out.

This is one thread I shall be following with interest as I have this Whirlybirds kit also to do, having flown in Bristows S-61Ns in the Falklands. Before this kit came out, I built a BEA S-61N with the Aircraft in Miniatures conversion kit which had a vac-formed fuselage,resin floats and white metal parts. I used the seats from an Italeri DC-3 kit, as you can't see the style of the actual seats once the fuselage is closed and populated them with Preiser seated passengers.

Edited by AMB
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Just a little update, and we've just received 13 colours with more on the way which I need to get to work on so the S-61 will slow down a bit until I break the back of the work work.

 

In order to mark where the seat legs go before attempting to make the floor look like well worn plywood, I marked out all the seat footings and gave each point a twist with a small drill bit. After plywooding (I'll be painting it - Uschi Van Der Rosten's plywood decals look nice but I can't justify £15+P&P for decals to go on an interior floor) the seats need merely be sat on the little divets on the floor. Aforementioned divets may be dabbed with aluminium to effect metal cups.

 

f65c7308-3707-4897-9e9a-53f7138bc8a7.jpg

 

I also remembered the forward baggage hold hatch and scribed that on too.

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Any three browns out of the galaxy of hues in brown out there dry brush stroked will 'ply up' nicely anyway as you know

 

That kind of enhancement gets my hackles up, don't people expect to model these days?  :(

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On 12/21/2016 at 10:42 PM, perdu said:

Any three browns out of the galaxy of hues in brown out there dry brush stroked will 'ply up' nicely anyway as you know

 

That kind of enhancement gets my hackles up, don't people expect to model these days?  :(

 

5990815e-a1cf-470b-89f2-c52f5471a3ce.jpg

 

fa588053-d6e9-4fd7-b2de-4287c4ce556e.jpg

 

I'm not sure I'm any good at painting plywood :unsure:

 

My father sent me this today - the company he works for now has bought a new (to them) Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin which is being fitted out with plywood floor boards at the moment:

8f3c7bbe-3af8-4ce0-8bf6-2f8a8c2aa950.jpe

 

I don't know if the S-61Ns had gaffer tape over the joins yet or not :rolleyes:

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Not good at plywood effect? I thought's you'd succumbed and brought the decals because that effect looks fantastic. That's something I may have to try this year.

 

New years resolutions are always the same - Try something new with my models. Be that weathering, painting, detailing or new aftermarket sets.

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I've only seen the plywood floors on a couple of Bell 212 models usually near the sling storage/fuel gear for transport.   But the overall effect looks quite good.

 

Usually I seen plastic liners put in the back as trays to protect the helicopter floor due to folks wearing caulk boots (spikes on the bottom) and reinforced/additional skid points for climbing in but that's usually on Bell 206/Eurocopter AS 350's. 

 

Some very nice progress and enjoying hearing the background stories on the machine.  I've only ever seen 2 of them and only one of those was flying.

 

foresterab

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A breath of fresh air, I'll certainly be following your progress. I flew as an "oilie" in 61's many a day with Bristows, BCALH,BAH and Irish helicopters and perhaps a dutch one too but memory escapes me . Ive got a kit or two lying about too and the Whirlybird seat kit looks good. I'll have to dig them out and give them a try I've a AIM version as aforementioned as well as the Whirlybird. Keep up the good work and informative posts.

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I'm stunned folks - truely - but I'm glad the plywood passes muster because I can't think of how to do it better!

 

I've made no progress today or yesterday, but instead have been using the time off the day job to catch up with restocking our paints. I feel very lucky to have met Stew Dapple from here because he has very generously been tirelessly helping me by filling 14ml tins for the past 2 days letting me concentrate on painting lids. It would have taken me about 6 days to get through what's been achieved in 2 by having someone else helping. I did leave Stew in the paint shed alone for a bit when my dad made a quick visit with Christmas presents for our daughters. He brought me this though:

 

39873b92-19be-4ef3-9850-6f592dcf6cc2.jpg

 

A branded ring binder. Wonderful? Aha but what's inside?

 

A complete set of course notes is what this is ...

 

It contains many notes on how the aircraft's systems work, where to fill it up with lubricants and so on, but it also contains many technical drawings

 

So all in all, whilst I may not be detailing the cyclic stick grips in 1/72, I don't think I can use the excuse of lack of reference material any more. All deficiencies are the direct result of a lack of ability in translating this information into model form.

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8 hours ago, oggy4624 said:

It is a phenolic resin honeycomb, we sold some to chc for one of their last S61 re builds

 

The floor boards? Maybe now, but in the 1980s it was plywood :) The S61s ended up with quite a number of seats removed due to All Up Weight limits in their latter years and plywood is pretty heavy.

 

The tail rotor blades were honeycomb though IIRC - I'll check those notes. 

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I didn't get a lot done on the S-61 yesterday as my wife thought I should get the hull of our (her) ship sprayed so it could be mounted and the decks completed to allow further work, so I did that instead. I did get the cockpit parts sprayed black though, and I made an attempt to stain (is that the right word?) the Eduard pre-painted instrument panel black(ish) too with heavily thinned black enamel applied like a pin-wash. They're dark enough now I think to use. They're not accurate, but I've concluded that my abilities do not extend to making anything better or more convincing, so I'll stick with this. I've read the DIY photo etch tutorial on here and whilst I have a complete panel layout in those course notes for the N, I just don't have any aptitude for CAD and find it a hugely frustrating experience. I'm glad others are better at it but I shall have to pass.

 

51e99a78-9842-4110-a406-853d3c12c877.jpg

 

I have woken up this morning to snow. It's still snowing on and off, so I think I'll stay indoors and do some modelling

 

 

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I haven't given up! I have been rather busy though, but to be honest just couldn't face painting all those seats. It's behind me now though, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it was very boring and that whilst spray painting is one of my favourite modelling activities, brush painting is one of my least favourite.

 

f6aec91a-3ca7-4d53-b233-caebcfac175c.jpg

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Great work there Stu, I like te work you are doing.

I think in all honesty Whirlybits did the right thing by saying use the Revell kit as a donor. I think it has kept the price of their kit managable, as adding all the parts to make it a full kit would have pushed the price to something unacceptable. I also think they undersetimated the skill of a most resin modellers and could have offered a diagram to alter the Revell kit main rotorblades and thereby offering a better priced kit. I produced or did for the ROTORcrft range (my baby in conjunction with Ali from Ali-Cats)(many thanks Ali) of resin conversion kits. My latest and probalby my last is just being released by Scaleworx in Cape Town. It's for the Westland Super Lynx Mk 62 in 48th scale. When I mastered it a couple of years back it had over sixty parts. John form Scalweworx has reduced it consideably and it's still quite expensive. I sometimes wonder if the modeller actually realises the cost of getting a kit to market? Especially when it's limited release, where cost have to amortized over a shorter run.

 

Sorry if I seem to have high-jacked your build thread.

 

Colin

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The cabin seats are now stuck to the floor. I need to shave the outboard arm rests a bit with a sanding stick as the fuselage is a little narrower internally at arm rest height than at floor height :rolleyes:

 

c4c9cfd4-e7e1-42dd-9c66-ebf6f84746cd.jpg

 

I'll then have to do some of that cockpit PE faff.

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James the interior is looking rather élite dontcha know, some work there which I'm not looking forward to (It'll probably not be til late this year or early next, I'm a bit committed timewise for a bit)

 

But which I am going to copy when I do mine, that floor is a must

 

Yours is magic

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Glad I found this, I have been intrigued by this conversion for some time. Doing a great job too! Looking forward to seeing the end result. I flew in x2 S-61N's down in the Falklands a few times, they rock like mad when sat with the engines running... ours did anyway!

 

Hope you don't mind, but the two I flew in.

 

27724852022_fd49a8db6e_b.jpg

 

27547808020_1b980bc1ff_b.jpg

 

 

Edited by Radleigh
Added photos.
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