1/48 Westland Wasp HAS1 Op Corporate

[Chewbacca]

This model is a bit  like the reverse of one of those Hollywood films, you know, the ones "loosely based" on reality, like U-571.  This is "loosely based" on the 1/48 Fujimi kit which I suppose gives a rough approximation of the overall look of a Wasp but without any of the detail!.  My plan was to replace that detail and get it looking vaguely accurate.

 

I actually started it probably 5 years ago after seeing it come up for auction at our local club.  For some strange reason, our Chairman, at the last minute, decided to swap this for the 1/72 Spitfire raffle prize because of course we could raise more money for yet another 1/72 Spitfire rather than a very rare 1960s helicopter kit that when it does occasionally come up on Ebay, commands silly money (I think the last one peaked in excess of £85).  Fortunately my friend who won the raffle had no great interest in helicopters and a sensible quantity of beer tokens changed hands.  

 

My interest in the Wasp and in particular a Corporate Wasp was that as a Midshipman, I passed out of Britannia Royal Naval College in April 1982 the day after the Task Force sailed for the Falklands and a week later, I found myself  in the back of an RAF Hercules at Lyneham heading for Gibraltar to join HMS HECLA which when I joined her, was respondent with bright red crosses in her new role as an ambulance ship.  Over the next 3 months or so I spent a lot of time flying around the South Atlantic in the cabin and even once strapped to the outside in a lightweight stretcher (I hasten to add as an exercise "casualty" to test our casualty evacuation capability).  Indeed it was the Flight Commander who persuaded me to specialise in the Fleet Air Arm once I had completed my OOW training. Therefore. the plan was to represent "Wilbur", HMS HECLA's Wasp helicopter rapidly flown out in the back of another Hercules with all flight personnel to join the ship in Gibraltar the day before we sailed for the South Atlantic in April 1982. 

 

To my shame, I didn't really document the early work because at the time I was a contributor to ATF rather than BM but it was about the time that ATF was swapping its platform to Tapatalk and I never really got on with the nuances that that change introduced.  The early work was, as you might imagine, the cockpit and cabin which out of the box were sparse to say the least.  So other than the cockpit floor, the rest of the interior is almost completely scratch built.  Wasps rarely flew with cockpit doors and often without cabin doors but looking at the fragility of the fuselage framing, I didn't think it would cope with me removing all of them so I limited the surgery to just the Pilot's cockpit door.  And at about that point, I parked it on the shelf of doom where it remained for the best part of 3 years.

 

And it was April of this year when I was looking for what I thought would be a little light relief after 18 months of scratchbuilding HMS BULOLO in 1/350 that Wilbur re-emerged.  From that point onwards, you can read the full story here:

 

In short, it turned into an exercise in scratchbuilding again after I threw away the "blob" that represented the engine and ancillaries, corrected all of the errors in the rotor head, tail rotor, transmission, undercarriage etc etc, and then decided that what it really needed was a flight deck base on which to sit and so built a 1/48 section of H Class Survey ship flight deck and quarterdeck.  I am grateful to so many BMers who have contributed to the build thread with useful suggestions, hints and general encouragement.  In particular I must thank @Bell209 whose Scout build was inspirational and proved to me that it was possible to do something with this kit, @hendie whose general helicopter scratchbuilding was just awesome and @perdu, @Martian, @Ex-FAAWAFU and @Terry1954 whose encouragement when I was losing heart with it all helped immensely.  I must also thank my former colleagues at MOD Handling Squadron who in the middle of a global pandemic when most were working from home, managed to get into the Squadron Archive to dig out the illustrations from the AIrcrew Manual for me even though in the end they actually provided little new information.

 

And so I present to you, Wilbur:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for watching

[NAVY870]

Superb.

Your worth more money.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Silk purse, have you met sow’s ear?

 

That Nimbus in particular is a work of art.

[perdu]

You can guess what I think.

 

Wilbur has been a tour de force thanks for taking us on board Hecla with you too.

 

SUPERB!

[Homer]

Very nice work 👏 

[coneheadff]

Fantastic!!!

[swralph]

Excellent modelling all round.😀

[Terry1954]

Wilber looks superb, and HMS Hecla's flight deck really sets the scene. The WIP was a pleasure and education to observe Ralph, and the end result shows all your skilled hard work perfectly. I hope to see this one day in the flesh, when normal service resumes on club nights!

 

Can a layman be allowed a quick BZ!

 

Terry

[Alpha Juliet]

Nicely done sir!

[Angell328]

To think that model started off as a Fujimi kit! My goodness Sir the scratchbuilding is amazing. I shall now be spending the next hour with a cuppa going through the build of this stunning helicopter.

The flight deck is a wonderful touch to show her off.

 

Matt

[SAT69]

Masterfully done diorama! Congratulations!

[Spitfire31]

Marvellous modelling!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

[wellsprop]

Stunning! 

[Abandoned Project]

Absolutely awesome.

'scuse me while I just pick my jaw up off the floor.

My gob is well and truly smacked!

[FIGHTS ON]

Lovely build, and yes it "looks" like a Wasp. Impressed by the detailing on the engine. I think there must be a whole generation of us Middies from the 80's  whose 1st ever experience of a helicopter flight was that BRNC Wasp kept at the top of the hill, can't imagine today's Risk Adverse MOD allowing anything like that now!

[MikeR]

Excellent!

 

Mike.

[dolphin38]

Excellent work, gorgeous looking Wasp and great display 

[RMCS]

Outstanding 

[tonyot]

Love it,.... superb subject and top notch modelling,..... the flight deck is just the icing on the cake,

Brilliant stuff,

Cheers

          Tony 

[bigbadbadge]

Amazing Model and the best display base I have seen,  truly great work. 

[Natter]

Super model and an even more interesting back story. Oh, those yellow seat squabs and their soooo comfortable (not) squashed sheepskin covers. Memories of numb bums are rekindled.

[Chewbacca]

Thank you to everyone for your kind words and forgive me if I don't respond to everyone personally.  I really enjoyed putting this together in spite of Fujima's best efforts to introduce stress into the hobby!  So to read these comments are the icing on the cake.  Thank you.

  

21 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

I hope to see this one day in the flesh, when normal service resumes on club nights!

 

Can a layman be allowed a quick BZ!

 

Terry

Of course Terry.  As far as I am concerned, anyone who understands the naval codes is entitled to use them.  I certainly plan to bring it along to a Club night when we're allowed to restart.  I suspect that will be March though at the earliest.

 

13 hours ago, FIGHTS ON said:

I think there must be a whole generation of us Middies from the 80's  whose 1st ever experience of a helicopter flight was that BRNC Wasp kept at the top of the hill, can't imagine today's Risk Adverse MOD allowing anything like that now!

 

After they took the Norton Flight in the late 80s as a savings measure, they used to get a Lynx to go down for a few days each term to give the air experience flights.  I was lurked for it once, realised it was actually a hoot, and volunteered a couple more times after that.  Being Flt Cdr down there must have been an amazing job.  I suspect the main challenges now are the time pressure given the way that they have reduced the length of the training pipeline and the lack of helicopters available to undertake the role

 

3 hours ago, Natter said:

Oh, those yellow seat squabs and their soooo comfortable (not) squashed sheepskin covers. Memories of numb bums are rekindled.

.  

Oh yes!  One of those memories I'd like to forget.

 

 

[Alpha Delta 210]

Stunning model topped off by a superb flight deck and quarter deck.

[Bell209]

What a lovely thing you've produced! There's some inspirational scratchbuilding there and I watched your build with interest. Well done, that man!

[CJP]

What a fabulous job you (and Bell209) have done with a very basic old Fujimi kit - must be satisfying to see it in your display case .

 

CJP