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General Mobutu's personal Congolese AF Sud Aviation Alouette III (Heller 1/72)


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From the Africa GB...

 

Sud Aviation Alouette III, the personal helicopter of corrupt despot and noted sartorial icon General Mobutu Sese Seko, 1967.

 

Heller 1/72 kit with Brengun etch and a bit of scratch work here and there. Not the easiest of kits to work with simply because it's so small and I'm chronically clumsy. The fit isn't great and is downright rotten around the front transparency. As always close-up photography is brutal but it passes the three foot test and I'm quite pleased with the result, although it was a lot of hours for a tiny outcome.

 

I'm indebted to Martin @RidgeRunner who supplied the Berna decals (twice as it turned out 😉) and Mr. Pierre Gillard who runs the outstanding www.alouettelama.com website, surely the definitive online resource for information about this versatile little chopper! He kindly allowed me to reproduce pictures from his website in my build thread, here:

 

 

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Mobutu had a very fancy red leather interior (he was all about understatement) which I had a go at reproducing, it's about a third kit, a third etch and a third scratch. I suspected it would be invisible (and I was right) so I took a pic along the way.

 

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A (whirly)bird in the hand...

 

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...and there are some pics of the real thing here.

 

https://pierregillard.zenfolio.com/drcaf 

 

Thanks for looking!

 

 

Edited by TonyOD
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Well done. It's a novel colour scheme too. I see you cut out the holes in the fuselage. I did that too in a half completed Alouette. So fiddly. I really must finish it. It's a tiny model. 

 

As for the real thing I hope Mobuto had a good set of ear defenders. Fancy upholstery or not the noise inside the cabin is insane. 😖

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19 hours ago, noelh said:

So fiddly.

The fiddly part was the grab bars - cutting tiny lengths of painted 5 amp fuse wire to length and gluing them in place (especially the upper step on each side, as there's a "T" shaped  arrangement.) Thought I was going blind...

Edited by TonyOD
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Very nice effort. I intend to build a Rhodesian Allouette but cant find any useful pictures of them. Anyone got any ideas?

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/17/2021 at 3:01 AM, Rik said:

I intend to build a Rhodesian Allouette but cant find any useful pictures of them. Anyone got any ideas?

 

Got these.

 

https://pierregillard.zenfolio.com/zimbabweairforce/ha1071607#ha1071607 

 

http://www.alouettelama.com/photos/001808.pdf 

 

Not sure where you'd find decals though!

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