1/144 EC135 Western Power Distribution

[SUB-SAM]

I'm having to take a break from modelling due to eye strain. (Yep, from modelling, yep that's what you get for doing 1/144 scale)

I thought I would show what I've been working on for a while. 

 

 

 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

I can understand the eye strain part!

 

Who does this kit?

 

 

[SUB-SAM]

14 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

I can understand the eye strain part!

 

Who does this kit?

 

 

It's from an F-toys model, instead of any kit unfortunately. (1/144 seriously lacks helicopter kits, probably due to glazing requirements)

I had to strip and modify the parts but thankfully the general shape and panel lines are very accurate for the scale. 

[ajmm]

I’ve been following this build elsewhere - I’ve rebuilt a lot of these F-Toys kits and how you did the glazing is brilliant. Amazing results - I can’t even imagine the challenges of ensuring the glazing fits as well as you’ve managed. 

[phildagreek]

That’s a tidy little thing!

[Thud_and_Blunder]

I do a daily news sweep for "Western Power Distribution" on a major internet search engine, and this thread came up.  Having until last year been one of the pilots on the WPD helicopter unit, please accept my compliments on a job really well done.  I was particularly struck by the little details, like the accurate stowage bag on the back of the observer's seat.  Very nice!

 

...er, you do know that the whole fleet is being refitted with some very gucci kit at the moment, don't you?  Depending how long the model will take to reach completion, you may find yourself having to add a turret and some other gizmos on the outside and a completely new screen setup for the observer in the back.  A modeller's work is never done 🙂

[SUB-SAM]

On 2/24/2020 at 2:31 PM, Thud_and_Blunder said:

I do a daily news sweep for "Western Power Distribution" on a major internet search engine, and this thread came up.  Having until last year been one of the pilots on the WPD helicopter unit, please accept my compliments on a job really well done.  I was particularly struck by the little details, like the accurate stowage bag on the back of the observer's seat.  Very nice!

 

...er, you do know that the whole fleet is being refitted with some very gucci kit at the moment, don't you?  Depending how long the model will take to reach completion, you may find yourself having to add a turret and some other gizmos on the outside and a completely new screen setup for the observer in the back.  A modeller's work is never done 🙂

Wow, 

Welcome and thank you for the compliment.

 

Being somewhere between Hinkley Point and Bristol airport, I regularly see these helicopters overhead. So it was a natural choice for a scheme when I decided to do an EC-135.

 

This one is based on G-WPDD in 2016, if my reference photos are correct. 

I did it from this period because it didn't appear to have the green WPD logos, which would have been difficult to produce as decals at home.

 

There will be a lot more details to fit in the coming weeks, with my eyes now recovering.

Various antennae, lights and of course windscreen wipers.

 

The display base the model sits on is meant to replicate the back corner of the concrete pad at the WPD helicopter unit.

Hopefully this looks familiar to you, with the red soil in that area 🙂

 

Best regards,

Sam

 

[Thud_and_Blunder]

My apologies for the delay in replying - I won't bore you with excuses (let's just say I'm not the most competent user of the interweb-thing).

 

Quite right about the logo, which first appeared on the new-buy P2e (G-WPDE), originally built for the NYPD (hence the fitments for Skyshout, fast-rope/abseil mods and wire-cutters) which we collected in 2015.  We will have to pretend that the pad is from one of our landaways - our engineers took extremely good care of the dispersal and would never have allowed it to become so 'weatherbeaten'!  (that last is certainly not a criticism of your wonderful landscape-modelling skills 😀)