hendie Posted October 30 Posted October 30 Aaand we're off again on another wild adventure, this time in foreign lands. For those of you that know me and my wanderings, surprisingly this is not a 28 Sqn machine for once, though there is a rather tenuous connection... Sek Kong. Ah... Sek Kong ping fong! After the British vacated the premises back in '97, Sek Kong went through a few changes - housing Vietnamese refugees for a while, before latterly being inhabited by the Chinese PLA (People's Liberation Army). As far as I am aware, the current inhabitants are the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Helicopter Regiment 39968. I decided that tenuous though it was, that was enough of a connection for me to model one of the current aircraft situated there. The nice PLAAF folks operate a number of Changhe Z-9B's (Haitun). A quick search found that both Kitty Hawk and Trumpeter do 1/48 versions of the Z-9, but Trumpeters is a Z-9G, while Kitty Hawk do a Z-9B/C/W all kitted in the same box. This box to be exact... Those of you with the requisite cognitive abilities will be saying "hold on, that's just a Dauphin!" Well it is, sort of. The Chinese started building copycat Dauphins on licence from Aerospatiale. Then the contract/licence ended... and guess what? The Chinese continued to make more and more Dauphins, or Haitun's (dolphin in Chinese), and started modifying them for different roles. Surprised? Nope. I think Aerospatiale complained but really? Where do you think that got them? Here's one of those Chinese Dolphins grazing at Sek Kong Anyways. On opening the box I was greeted with a large number of bags containing an even larger number of parts, all well packaged. It also had a nice little PE fret, some transfers, and a nice little instruction book Initial examination proved quite encouraging - there was lots of lovely well defined detail in the moldings such as this instrument panel. Dontcha just love painting buttons? However, all is not well in the state of Hendieville. Research proved a touch challenging. Would you believe those nice PLAAF folks don't appear to have allowed us modellers to take lots of detailed photos of the nice dolphin? Not a single walkaround to be found anywhere. Even finding photos of a Z-9B wasn't the easiest thing. I've squirrelled away what photos I could find, thankfully some of them are decent quality resolution, however, I cannot find anything of the interior - no cockpit, no cabin, nothing nada, zilch. So I may end up switching between Dauphins and Haituns for reference as this build progresses. I can find only one other build of the Haitun on Britmodeller and the OP appears to have given up before finishing (maybe I should heed the warning?) Funnily enough, I think my very first aircraft build on BM was the RHKAAF Dauphin I just hope my modeling abilities have got better since I did that back in 2014. It's debateable. Moving on. More research - what little I could accomplish - started giving me the heeby-jeebies. Complaints about parts not fitting and confusing instructions. For example, Kitty Hawk provide two different Fenestron arrangements, but no direction in the instructions as to which version is applicable to what aircraft. (I think I have that one figured out now, at least). But more concerning is Kitty Hawk's rather novel (for "novel" read alarming!) approach to the engineering of the kit. There's no fuselage! WHAT? Yup, no fuselage. Well there is but not in the normal sense you would so rightly expect to see. I don't think I've ever encountered a model aircraft kit that doesn't supply two main fuselage sections. Kitty Hawk? Nope. Kitty Hawk have decided for whatever reason to have you construct an internal structure, then clad it with various fuselage panels later to complete the outer shell of the aircraft. Tolerance stack-up anyone? What could go wrong? Here's most of the internal structure (dry fitted) to give you an idea of what we're dealing with here. That structure is made up of 12 individual components, yes... 12 (should have been 13 but I forgot one panel). Get one of those components out of alignment and you have a knock on effect for the rest of 'em. Dear lord. Now, as I mentioned above, the detail on the molding is top quality for this price range. It's just a shame the parts don't fit. The first two components I tried to mate together didn't fit. Neither did parts three and four. Or even parts five and six. Help! All the slots I have tried have been too small for their respective locating tabs. Where pin and hole method has been employed, the holes are too shallow. THen we encounter issues like this... see that gap? Is it supposed to be there? I would imagine that the bulkhead should sit directly on that ledge, wouldn't you? The problem is: Do I add a filler piece? Or do I file the bottom off the bulkhead until it sits flush? Which one is correct? If either. Whatever option I go for has an effect on the finished height of the roof section there - which in turn houses the transmission and engine bays - which in turn are clad in those numerous exterior fuselage panels. Just what am I getting myself into here? So far I have to say that it has been quite enjoyable though most of my time has been spent wondering what I can actually assemble without potential detriment to assembly further down the line. This little sub-assembly has 7 components so far with another dozen or so to be added. Luckily most of it is one color - according to Kitty Hawk though I am becoming less and less confident of their internal color scheme. So instead I just grabbed a number of parts and colored them in with primer, and called it a day while I ponder more. I think this could be one of those roller-coaster rides folks. Y'know, I could end up really Haitun this build Okay, I'll get me 11 4 2 2
Billos Posted October 30 Posted October 30 1 hour ago, hendie said: whatever reason to have you construct an internal structure, then clad it with various fuselage panels later to complete the outer shell of the aircraft. Well to be fair, that's pretty much how the real helicopter is built... but I understand your pain... https://aviaco.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/1605953866686.jpeg 1 1
ElectricLightAndy Posted October 30 Posted October 30 Brilliant, another hendie masterpiece in progress, snuggling down for the feature Andy 1
CedB Posted October 31 Posted October 31 I'm in! Loving the detail, if not the fit, but I know you'll bend it to your will 1
Wlad Posted November 1 Posted November 1 I was expecting a Wessex, so this is a surprise. Well, welcome to your nightmare… Just a thought for you to ponder. Have you considered assembling it with a little white glue, yes it will be a slow process, to check the fit and adjust as needed? Then take it apart and build it as usual. Good luck. I’ll be cheering for you. Wlad 1 2
hendie Posted November 4 Author Posted November 4 Slowly, slowly catchee Changhe as they say. The weekend interfered with progress somewhat but things are getting back on track now. The instructions dictated that I add some weight to the front end though very thoughtfully did not specify an actual value in grams, ounces, or batman's. (yes, Batman is a measurement of weight - go look it up!) Anyhoos, weight was added in the form of Liquid Gravity and 2 part epoxy. I'm not sure if this is enough but I have a plan to add more in Operation Overkill later. Next operation was to glue the floor to the bottom of the fuselage. I took a wild stab in the dark that this would not detrimentally affect assembly later. The instructions actually have you adding the undercarriage before this stage but we all know what happens there, don't we folks? Back to the interior. I figured since that is the most time consuming I may as well try and get that out of the way. The cockpit comes with a very nice looking instrument panel in PE. Several bits of PE in fact. Now, since I am doing a Z-9B it appears I need PE parts 1, 2, & 4 (x2). I know this is a horrible photo, but bear with me. Parts 1, 2, & 4 (x2) are on the top left of the PE fret. Take a squint. I spent absolutely ages staring at this trying to figure it out. Part 4 is far too large to fit in the space provided on Part 1, - and it has what appeared to be 4 tabs, but no mention of folding anywhere. Neither are there any fold lines on the part, and the diagram shows what is essentially a flat part. Eventually the penny dropped when I noticed that two of the tabs were angled - yes, it has to be folded. Why couldn't they just state that somewhere? I used some parallel pliers to do the folding - these parts were tiny! Folding sides 1 & 2 was straightforward. Folding side 3 was difficult and side 4 was nigh on impossible... until I had a eureka moment. I cut off one of the plastic identifiers on the runner and cut that to fit inside the "square". That allowed me to grip the part with tweezers and fold that last side up into place. Having no etched fold line meant that I couldn't get nice neat bends, but I think I got to where it needed to be. Once folded I filled the void in the back with putty. Then, when I was giving a last gentle squeeze with the pliers to square things up - Oops! Step away, step away. I'll come back to that later. As I have bemoaned previously, Kitty Hawk have made some interesting if not downright bizarre engineering design decisions. This next part is one of them. Can you guess what it is yet? (are we allowed to say that these days?) It's the main rotor gearbox. No, honestly. It is. Things aren't helped by the fact that there were huge gates on every part. Clearances aren't and the parts don't slip into each other as intended. The part on the extreme left is the "starting point" and it's supposed to have two pins on it as they align the next part which then aligns the next part, which in turn aligns the next part and so on. No pins! It was a short shot. Much scraping, filing, and cursing later we have a messy horrible looking blob of plastic. As horrible as it looks, once the rest of the assembly is, ehrrr... assembled, it doesn't look too bad. 14 parts later... Dammit! Another ghost posting and I'm only halfway through... hold on... After the MRGB it was time for some light entertainment so I calmed myself by starting to thin down the exhaust cans. As supplied on right, and partially thinned on left. Enough of that - back to the insides again. The kit supplied rudder(yaw) pedals were okay'ish, but a bit bland. They needed some bling. So, checking my references I found that the Dauphin rudder pedal are quite complicated little affairs. Fun time. Bits of plastic and wire were added for that extra bling effect. ... then glued in position - after having to howk out the location slots once again. I haven't found a tab and slot that actually fits yet without modification. From the reverse side Hydraulic lines were added from some 0.2mm diameter stainless wire as seen in this unedited unglamorous close up. I mixed some steel and some brass paint to color in the valves/cylinders. Still on the internals but external to the cockpit, it's time to start on the trans deck. Kitty Hawk have you paint the whole thing in that colorless mid grey - which I did. Then realized that there would be firewalls up in this engine area so I colored it in a bit differently. The base color was a polished aluminum, followed by a splash of titanium gold and finished off with some black/grey aimed at the corners and a couple of random areas. I know I should have taken care of those ejector pin marks and the parting lines but this entire area gets completely covered (and I forgot!) It starts to build up into a nice little assembly. The main rotor gearbox was given a good old coloring in. I didn't have the appropriate color so mixed some blue and grey as the description on the instructions was bluish grey. Or was it greyish blue? That was followed by a fun little masking job. These parts were supposed to be colored in "gold" according to the instructions but I felt that would be a bit gaudy so went for titanium gold instead. Unmasking revealed this. ..which fits on here - or will do after I've opened up the locating hole and shaved the inside of the gearbox so it will fit on the floor instead of hovering above it like an impatient Dalek. Kitty Hawk actually provide a rather nice palette for anyone wishing to open this up and add all the extra gubbinses and wotnots. And that may also disguise a lot of the fit issues of the fuselage panels - which I haven't got to yet. Again, avoiding any of yer akchul assembly of the body of this helo I opted to give it a body swerve and do some detail painting instead. Still in progress but you get the picture... fuzzy though it is. Look @giemme - paint AND decals and we're still on page 1! Remember that little oopsie earlier with the instrument panel box thing? Well, I flatted it out with the parallel pliers and started it all over again and it turned out okay. I almost had a disaster with the IP decal though - part of it folded on me when I was trying to position it over those box affairs and it left a nasty white patch that I couldn't get rid of. I disguised it by slapping another instrument decal over it - it's the third gauge from bottom on the extreme right. I think I got away with it. Another shot from a different angle. I'm not sure bout the grey rectangle thing I painted. That may have to go. (All of this is just dry fitted at the moment.) This afternoons session was completed when I got desperate for a cup of coffee so I finished off by slapping some Flory's over the cabin floor - which I may come to regret later. Yes, I still have to wipe all the grubby stuff off. You may also noted that some seats have been colored in but I forgot to take any photos of them. You'll just need to wait until next time. So far, so good. No major debacles or obstruction - aside from my own ham-fistedness that is. I have to say that despite the reviews I've read, I'm enjoying this kit quite a bit. That's last statement is just bound to have jinxed me, hasn't it? 12 4
The Spadgent Posted November 4 Posted November 4 2 hours ago, hendie said: that despite the reviews I've read, I'm enjoying this kit quite a bit. Oh you’ve done it now! 🤣 looking like you’re having some fun. And it looks like a nice kit, it’s reminding me of the Roden I built. Kinda fell for it after all it’s failings. I’ll pull up a squashy chair and watch the show. Nice work so far. Funny you mentioned the Rolf quote. I was going to use it in my latest update but didn’t for your exact reason. 🤣 Johnny 1
CedB Posted November 5 Posted November 5 Great stuff Alan, especially that i/p. Looks like you're beating it into submission! 1
Hamden Posted November 5 Posted November 5 Is there room for one more - can't miss out on a Hendie build. Looks like you're having fun from the off, awaiting the next up date now with interest. Roger 1
MikeC Posted November 5 Posted November 5 On 30/10/2025 at 19:25, hendie said: But more concerning is Kitty Hawk's rather novel (for "novel" read alarming!) approach to the engineering of the kit. There's no fuselage! WHAT? Yup, no fuselage. Well there is but not in the normal sense you would so rightly expect to see. I don't think I've ever encountered a model aircraft kit that doesn't supply two main fuselage sections. Kitty Hawk? Nope. ICM take this approach on their 1/48 MiG 25 Foxbat series. It's unusual, but it's nothing to be afraid of. In ICM's case, the fit is very good, and provided you take your time and follow a logical order, it works. Hopefully the same will apply to your model - good luck. 1
giemme Posted November 5 Posted November 5 Gearbox and IP are very detailed - looking the part to me! 11 hours ago, hendie said: Look @giemme - paint AND decals and we're still on page 1! Yeah, I feel like I need a laydown! Ciao 2
Whofan Posted November 5 Posted November 5 Oh Hendie, you have got yourself a puzzle box! Unfortunately, most of your photos won’t come out on my iPhone, so I’m going to have to watch this build on the PC or kindle. 1
Pappy Posted November 5 Posted November 5 (edited) G'day Hendie, I found the hysteria about the ill-fitting KH kit to be greatly exaggerated; in fact it went together very well as long as diligent test fitting and clean up was practiced. The reason the build stalled was that I wanted to push on with some other builds. I also have the KH H-9 kit and the plastic is the same. cheers, Pappy Edited November 7 by Pappy 1
81-er Posted November 5 Posted November 5 You're certainly off to a good start here, Alan, even if it is an unusual breakdown of parts with some "interesting" ideas when it comes to the location features. Hopefully you haven't jinxed yourself for the rest of it I believe you can still use the Rolf quote, but only after a thorough police background check James 3
hendie Posted November 5 Author Posted November 5 21 hours ago, The Spadgent said: Funny you mentioned the Rolf quote. He was my hero for years - then he had to go and ruin it. It's a great quote though so I'm still going to use it. 11 hours ago, Whofan said: Oh Hendie, you have got yourself a puzzle box! It certainly is - especially when they mis-number the parts in the instructions. I think this is the model with the greatest parts count I've ever come across. 9 hours ago, Pappy said: you may find it helpful It most certainly will be Pappy. I had a quick browse and you already solved one problem for me - I'll dig into it more later. 5 hours ago, 81-er said: I believe you can still use the Rolf quote, but only after a thorough police background check me or him? My mistake, he's already had one. Ooohh goodies. Look what arrived in the mail yesterday evening. Another installment of the Hendie does Sek Kong series. But back to the current incumbent. Seats were colored in. I only have one photo of the Z-9B with doors open and surprisingly (to me anyway), they show blue seats. Quite a bright blue in fact. Even the cabin has big comfy chairs for the troops. Those PLAAF chaps certainly get to fly in comfort. The photo was taken at a Sek Kong open day so I wonder if the PLAAF fitted nice comfy chairs all round just for that show to deceive impress the locals? Whatever, it's the only photo I have so I'm going with it. In preparation for the seats, the floor got a bit of a clean. Not much, but a bit. I feel I should have taken more off but it's too late now as varnish has been applied. Maybe it will tone down with all the other gizzits in place, he says hopefully. Ehhrrrr, not really. The seats are a bit overdone as well. I just can't get the hang of this weathering malarkey at all. Johnny makes it look so easy but it's a lot harder than it looks. I guess this is where I can state that assembly has finally begun. Seats now glued in, as is the center console, instrument console, and front bulkhead. I took the opportunity to add some more liquid gravity inside the center console before it was laid to rest. Shot from the front. Apparently the Z-9B can hold up to 10 troops. Obviously as you can see here, Kitty Hawk only provide 8 troop seats. I'm guessing two of them can either sit on the floor or perhaps there's a couple of jump seats that fit in behind that front row? Who knows. Now begins the part I really dislike about doing helicopters... seat belts. Needs must be however and I may as well get on with it. Strangely, Kitty Hawk provide seat belts for the troop seats - but they only provide enough to do 6 troop seats. What the heck? It doesn't really matter that much as I dislike PE seat belts. I feel they never look natural enough, or perhaps that's just another shortfall in my skillset. Anyway, I have a method which works for me so I'll stick with that. Kitty Hawk do provide PE seat belts for both pilots, but they've omitted the seat belt reel which is located on the back of the pilots seats. Here we go... abit of old fashioned scratch building. They've now been sent off to the paint shop. Meanwhile I can get started on the really soul destroying part, the troop seat belts. As I have no information whatsoever on the interior, I'm just going with boring old black'ish colored belts. It may look rough here but those belts are only 1mm wide. I've used my old fall back here - painted ciggy wrapper paper. It takes paint well, and hold its shape easily. It's also lightly textured so from viewing distance it appears fabric(y) So, belt from ciggy wrapper and buckle from 0.25 thick styrene cut into 1 x 1.5mm rectangles and sprayed polished aluminum. That one shown above is just the prototype. I'll use that to get lengths, then make up a batch to do the rest of the seats. In between times, I'll tackle the pilots seats to alleviate the boredom. 10 hours ago, Pappy said: I found the hysteria about the ill-fitting KH kit to be greatly exaggerated I think you may be correct there Pappy, but I'll reserve judgement until I've got a bit further into the assembly sequence. 10 1
81-er Posted November 6 Posted November 6 With the seats in place, I don't think the floor looks over done at all, especially not in the longshot: https://postimg.cc/18x17LkW I'm sure the seats will be the same once the belts are on. My own weathering always seems overdone to me when I'm looking at it close up with the magnifiers on, but when you take a step back it looks fine. We have to force a bit of contrast at times so that it's visible at a normal viewing distance when it's all finished, especially with the interiors that will be significantly less exposed and much darker than they are during the build. As for your armchairs, I'm sure it's much easier to fit plush looking seats in your helicopter when your troops are only 80% the size of Western ones James 2 1
giemme Posted November 6 Posted November 6 A bit of good ol' scratch building - I love that! I concur with James @81-er re the weathering Ciao 1
The Spadgent Posted November 6 Posted November 6 Yeah the weathering looks great. I do like the floor a lot. Nice to see the printer taking a bit of a back seat. 1 1
CedB Posted November 6 Posted November 6 I’m with you on the weathering – I can never get it looking realistic. I don’t think I’m quite arty enough. 1 1
hendie Posted November 7 Author Posted November 7 Thanks for the motivational comments folks - it really helps keep the mojo bubbling. Carrying on from our last episode, an easy job up first was fitting the two seat belt reels on the back of the pilots seats. After that, things got progressively harder. Production started on the seat belts. That was the easiest part - fitting them was incredibly time consuming and fiddly. First two belts in place. Then some hours later the troops belts are all fitted. That probably took me in the region of 2 to 3 hours to get those all in place, secured and some paint touch ups. A quick side shot. I just don't think you can get that sort of detail with PE belts. (at least I can't). I thought of taking a break from seat belts but this is probably the hardest and most frustrating part of the build so I decided to carry on and just get the job over and done with. Manufacture of the pilots belts began rather uneventfully. I managed to find a couple of small PE discs and stuck a slice of styrene rod on top to create the 5 point buckle. Then got absorbed into the proceedings and completely omitted to take any more photos of the process. Eventually though, the two pilots seat harnesses were completed. I'm not entirely happy with the seat harness on the port side as the buckles aren't even, but the superglue grabbed too quickly, and by that point I had so much time and effort invested in the harness I wasn't going to risk destroying it and having to start again. The harnesses are nowhere near accurate, but they have 5 straps, a 5 point buckle and a couple of adjustment buckles so they'll do the job this time around. Soul destroying as that job may be, adding harnesses and belts really does add a lot of visual interest. Remember this gap? The gap that I wasn't sure should be there or not? Well, after a ridiculous amount of faffing about trying to dry fit parts and get them to stay together I finally determined that the gap should not be there. I ended up removing around 1.5mm from the bottom of that bulkhead. Dry fitting on this kit is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of the parts - especially the fuselage panels do not have any positive location features - they're all dependant upon aligning and mating with adjacent panels. Since I had to remove a portion from the bottom of the bulkhead it had no way of positively locating with its respective slots in the floor. Actually it never had any locating tabs from the get-go anyways. The only way I could get a final location and orientation for the bulkhead was to come up with this "jig" arrangement. The bulkhead is now glued in position. The side panels attached the bulkhead locate with a small lip on top of the wheel bays - but - are free to move forward and backward. The only way to positively locate those two panels was to tape on the tail cone which butts up against the bottom of the fuselage, make sure the panels are all butted up against each other as tight as possible, slap on some glue and hope for the best. A quick diversion saw the MRGB glued in position. Having that recalcitrant bulkhead finally fixed in position allowed me to add the trans deck floor which in turn allowed me to add the fuselage arch. There was no way that clamps were ever going to work in holding this together so it was all down to good old tube cement for strength, masking tape to pull it all together and a few strategic drops of cyano to stop things from moving around while the tube cement cures. A quick dry fit of the exhausts to ensure its all going to fit together later. The exhaust cans were painted with Alclad pale burnt metal, a smidgin of exhaust manifold at the end, then some very watered down transparent blue in the transition area - which doesn't show up at all in this photo. I finished off as much detail painting as I'm going to do on the overhead console, but did add a small light (scratchbuilt old style) and two (throttle?) levers and slapped some yellow paint on them. Then it was back to yet more dry fitting, this time to ensure that the front end is all going to come together and play nicely. At least the light and throttle levers should be visible when it's all buttoned up. Thoughts at this point? Overall I am really enjoying the build. It is certainly not a kit for a beginner and you need a lot of patience. Dry fitting is essential though awkward and sometimes frustrating. To be honest I am surprised that Kitty Hawk have gone to such great lengths to provide all that extra detail when it's all enclosed behind panel work. It must have easily doubled the tooling cost. I think there's something like 10 or 11 runner trees. It's great value for money at less than $50 delivered, and this would be a great kit for someone who wanted to open up the panels and give it the full bling treatment. I'm kind of kicking myself for not going down that route now. 14 1
CedB Posted November 8 Posted November 8 Great belts hendie - they look great to me and the pair tip has been filed (and probably lost). Coming together nicely with all your fettling 1 1
giemme Posted November 8 Posted November 8 Well, that was some update! The seat belts look spot on and they add a great deal of interest to the interiors! And the overall definitely looks choppery, now Ciao 1 1
81-er Posted Tuesday at 09:44 AM Posted Tuesday at 09:44 AM Another superb update there, Alan The work is paying off, it's looking very, very nice in there now James 1 1
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