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Leonardo TH-73A Thrasher


hsr

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The Leonardo TH-73A Thrasher is the newest U.S. Navy, Marine Corp, and Cost Guard primary training helicopter, replacing the venerable but aging Bell TH-57 series. Here is the first one accepted by the Navy;

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 I started building training aircraft last year and the completest in me insisted that I include a TH-73A in the collection. The problem is that no one makes a kit of it or of the Augusta (Leonardo is the successor brand name of the former AugustaWestland helicopter company) AW119, nor is one likely made any time soon. However the AW119 is a single engine development of the earlier Augusta AW109 Revell does make a 1/72 kit of the AW109, which they call an A-109. According to  Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_AW119_Koala “the AW119 shares the same cockpit and cabin of the AW109, along with commonality with various other systems”. It differs in the “dog house” (the part that sits on top of the cabin, there must be a technical term for it but I don’t know it) , the rear cabin decking, skids replacing the wheeled landing gear, a lower tail fin, and the shape of the nose, more on that later.

 

So I started with the Revell kit

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And I found a 1/72 die cast model of an NYPD AW119

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While the body of the die cast model is metal I found that the dog house was a separate plastic piece

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And while it was impervious to liquid cement it did respond well to CAA glues so I decided to use it as is. Also a separate plastic piece was the bottom plate with the skids and lower windows, so I could use those parts. Unfortunately the rear cabin rear top deck was metal. So I first started by cutting it out with my Dremel tool.

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A quick comparison showed that it could work with the Revell kit, but I was not going use a metal part. So for only the second time I made a mold and cast it in resin

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While that was cooking I assembled the Revell kit.

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One of the improvements of the TH-73A over the AW119 is a complete glass cockpit. I simulated the screens using black decals.

 

Yet to be done was remove the dog house A, the rear of the twin engine top deck B, add the lower windows somewhere around C, and replace the funky tail skid with the lower fin at D. And this is where disaster struck, or should I say ineptness. As mentioned above the shape of the noses of the 109 and the 119 are different. As best as I can tell the 109 nose is ~1’ longer or ~.155 scale inches. It is also more pointy then the 119. Not realizing this at the time I measured the position of the lower window back from the front of the longer nose and so cut and glues them too far forward. Also I must have installed the control panel a little too far forward because it ended up touching the front windscreen and when I applied liquid cement to the windscreen it creeped up between the 2 crazing a large section of it. Between these 2 errors I can as close as I ever have to consigning this project to the circular file (garbage can). But after sleeping on it I decided to order a new Revell kit to replace the clear parts and a new die cast model for the lower windows. Sigh.

 

While I was waiting for those I worked on re-contouring the nose. I removed the kit bottom plate, without damaging it and filled the hollow nose with a big ball of Milliput, and put the bottom plate back. This made the nose solid so I could sand it to the correct contours. This also filled in the incorrect lower windows

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Next I installed the correct dog house, my cast top plate, and the lower fin.

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Not quite as good a fit as I had hoped, but nothing so gap filling super glue couldn’t fix

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Once the new die cast model arrived I use its lower window as templates to cut them out in the correct location and I installed the skids and brass handles to the tail.

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Then once the new Revell kit arrived I replaced the front wind screen and got it all masked.

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Ignore the tooth pick. It just acts a handle I can use while painting.

 

And here it is with its first coat of primer

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And that is as far as I have gotten so far, but at least I know now that it is doable.

 

More after the New Year.

 

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Very glad I came across this build, a great idea and it's looking great!

 

Would love to see the AW series and for that matter a lot more civilian helicopters made in all scales. They're severely under made in the modelling world.

 

Anyway, interested in where this build goes and good luck with it.

 

M

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2 hours ago, MBM said:

Would love to see the AW series and for that matter a lot more civilian helicopters made in all scales. They're severely under made in the modelling world.

Trainers, helicopters, and civilian aircraft in general don't get a lot of love from the big manufacturers. I am surprised that Revell did the 109. Based on the layout it is possible that they planned on doing a 119 at some point, but it didn't happen. 

 

2 hours ago, MBM said:

Anyway, interested in where this build goes and good luck with it.

From here on the hard part is done and it is just a matter of filling, sanding and painting. The decals will be the next hard part, but they shouldn't be too bad to create 🤌since they are mostly just text.

 

Thanks

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After much sanding a filling, perhaps too much, and a little New Years celebrating, I have given it its first coat of white.

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I use Tamiya Surface Primer lacquer from a jar (87096) for all white surfaces. It has the advantages of:

  1. It is easy to thin and spray
  2. It dries fast
  3. It forms a hard sandable surface
  4. And most important it does not yellow like all my enamel whites do

however it has the disadvantages:

  1. It will sometimes form a pebbly surface that needs to be lightly sanded and smoothed
  2. It can not be touched up with a brush
  3. I have found that some times enamel paints don't like to stick to it.

I have never had issue 3 with the gray version of the primer, so once I have masked off the areas I want to keep white I will give it a coat of gray primer which will stick to the white and enamels will stick to it.

 

Tomorrow will be a masking day.

 

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Great progress on this unusual 'multi-media' approach! It will look the business once the top paint coat is on. Mind you, which genius christened it 'Thrasher'? Honestly...

On 12/31/2021 at 2:40 PM, MBM said:

Would love to see the AW series and for that matter a lot more civilian helicopters made in all scales

I'm another one who thinks it's a shame that civilian rotorcraft are sadly under-represented in model form. The AW139, for example, is used virtually worldwide in all kinds of roles yet hasn't yet been kitted, a decent mainstream S-61N kit would offer plenty of options and I'd love to see a 1/72 S-92 (but then I'm biased!).

Jon

Edited by Jonners
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14 hours ago, Jonners said:

Great progress on this unusual 'multi-media' approach! It will look the business once the top paint coat is on. Mind you, which genius christened it 'Thrasher'? Honestly...

I'm another one who thinks it's a shame that civilian rotorcraft are sadly under-represented in model form. The AW139, for example, is used virtually worldwide in all kinds of roles yet hasn't yet been kitted, a decent mainstream S-61N kit would offer plenty of options and I'd love to see a 1/72 S-92 (but then I'm biased!).

Jon

Ah, looking at your profile photo that looks like an S-92 cockpit to me!? I can see where a possible bias comes in! 

 

Yes I agree with the AW139, from there it would be nice to see the 169 as so many UK HEMS charities use them along with the 189 for Coastguard and the 109's get everywhere so I'd like to see one of those too.... Sadly I'm probably asking for a few too many kits here but a man can still dream.  Come to think of it so many pilots have flown the R44 it would be nice to see a large scale one of those too.

 

Mark

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Lovely work, quite inspired. But "Thrasher"? Almost as bad as Relentless from Bell. What goes on in the minds of the American naming committee. Oh and Fighting Falcon, changed I believe after Dassault complained after the original Falcon name for the F16. Sorry for straying off topic.

 

Keith

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I spent most of today masking, with not all that much to show for it.

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I had a small hope that I would be able to mask the fine black stripes that go around the orange on the cabin, but that didn't work out too well. I have then black stripe decals and I will try to implement the stripes with them when decaling time comes. I also managed to spray the rotor hubs with Alclad aluminum

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I've found it really difficult to find any good pictures of the top and bottom of the main rotor but from what I can tell the top is white with red stripes and the bottom is mostly black with a dark gray or metallic leading edge. Both sides with yellow tips. The tail rotor is white and red stripes.

 

Tomorrow I'll work on spraying the black.

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22 hours ago, Britman said:

Masking looks good , something I quite enjoy.

My greatest pleasure on a project is when I remove all the mask and see what I have wrought.

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Yesterday i spayed black in the appropriate areas

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Then today I masked off the black

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and gave it a first coat of orange

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Tomorrow and probably Saturday will be more coats of orange.

 

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I'm back! After 3 coats of orange and a day of touch up it got its first coat of gloss for the decals today.

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The black stripes on the wind shield are for the wiper blades. I added a hoist using the hoist from a Hasegawa SH-60 and the brackets from a Testors/Fujimi SH-3H.

 

I also got the main and tail rotors painted

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And I printed the decals for the markings

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Hopefully they will work. I printed this sheet on my laser printer and another sheet on my ink jet printer,

 

I'll be back once they are applied

 

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Decals applied! I printed a set of decals using the AMARILLOUSAF 45 degree font that I downloaded from the internet onto Sunnyscopa clear laser decal paper with my HP 1505 laser printer.  I gave them a light coat of Testors Decal Bonding Spray and no other coating, and they applied perfectly to the model with no issues

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I am not crazy about the black stripe that wraps around the nose, but I think it is the best I can get.

 

So tomorrow it will get a coat Alclad Light Sheen and hopefully it will be finished. 

 

Until then. 

 

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Well things didn't work out as well as I had hoped today. when I went to remove the masking significant patches of orange peeled off with it.😱 I think I have repaired most of the damage

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and a little bit more touch up tomorrow will finish it. 🤌 The main rotor is just sitting on top and not glued on yet.

 

Tomorrow is another day 

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So I am calling it done. I was able to mostly blend in the touch up, blow out the dust from the interior with a can of Dust-Off, clean up the windows some with Future and attach the main rotor.

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For more pictures see the RFI at

 

Thank you to everyone for your comments and encouragement.

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