SteveV22FE Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 (edited) Here is the plan: This is the AH-6G/MH-6H prototype. (US Army via Matt Graham) I am using MD500 Defender kit and modifying it to the MH-6H Overall shot of what has been accomplished: Cockpit/Cabin: Side Doors - The doors have to be modified to reflect the correct cut out (see above aircraft pic.) This is to allow the for the extensionsto be attached and leave the door in place. Left side and Right Side. I glued the halves together today and attached the tail boom. I noticed that the tail boom on these H-6 kits sits pointing up at the aft and is crooked. Using a straight edge, I lined up the top and sides. Just minor speed bumps. The side doors did not fit due to the fuselage being a little warped. Here is a head on picture showing the back of the instrument panel. Edited June 16, 2010 by SteveV22FE Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 16, 2010 Author Share Posted June 16, 2010 I scratchbuilt the antennas out of sheet styrene and placed them on the model. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 16, 2010 Author Share Posted June 16, 2010 Model Master Interior Black is a near perfect match for these 160th SOAR birds. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hovering Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 Nice :) Your paint job is much better than the original ;) Aside from the night formation light (and the arrow? on the blade antenna) does it have any markings? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 16, 2010 Author Share Posted June 16, 2010 (edited) I still gotta add a couple more antennas to it. As far a markings go and as far as I can tell, it's just a black helicopter. Which, in my opinion, is the best part!! You can see in the pictures, there are no markings on the aicraft. No national insignia, US ARMY, Not even a tail number. ;) My models usually turn out really good right up to the decal part, then I mess it up! Edited June 16, 2010 by SteveV22FE Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Loach Driver Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 Steve, well done on a very nice MH-6. It is coming along nicely. LD. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
HeavyArty Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 (edited) It is coming along well so far. As far as markings, it depends. Some had black 3-digit tail numbers and UNITED STATES ARMY on the tailboom, along with a 5-digit number on the sail. Some have the numbers and US Army markings in OD Green. Cobra Company has a SOAR decal set in OD. You can see the OD green markings here. Black numbers and US Army markings on an AH-6M. Here is how my MH-6J model came out. I did a combo of OD green and black markings as the aircraft I was depicting had. You can faintly see the black markings on it. Good luck. Edited June 16, 2010 by HeavyArty Quote Link to post Share on other sites
11bee Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 Another Littlebird!!! I really like it, you did a great job on it. Nice choice for a subject, don't think anyone else has done an AH-6G before. Regards, John Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rotorwash Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 Great work, Steve! I like it a lot. Ray Quote Link to post Share on other sites
salvador001 Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 Your AH-6 is turning out real good, congrats. Rod. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 17, 2010 Author Share Posted June 17, 2010 (edited) -Finished scratch building the rest of the antennas (That'll drive you bonkers). -Decided that it still looked too black so I used a dark gray pastel to tone the black down. After I dull coated the model it looks just about right. -Added the tail rotor assy. -Just about done with this one. Any ideas on seatbelts???? Edited June 17, 2010 by SteveV22FE Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Avus Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 (edited) Great looking Little Bird! It's proceeding very well. There's is one thing that I could bring up, but it's too late to correct ... ok, now I mentioned it. Alright then: as far as I know the instrument panel on the Little Bird is different than the one on the Loach (OH-6). The one you have intalled on your bird is the Loach-IP, which is some what T-shaped. The Little Bird's IP is more like a column. I admit I don't know if the MH-6H already had the "Column-IP", but since the MH-6E had it I desume that the H does as well. When I converted a Defender to an MH-6J I built the panel from scratch. Here's the article on ARC. As for the seat belts I use stretched lead foil and either PE or wire for the buckles. Edited June 17, 2010 by Avus Quote Link to post Share on other sites
11bee Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 (edited) Any ideas on seatbelts???? Eduard has a nice PE set for the OH-6A. It has some useful items including seatbelts. Nice job on the painting, it looks very realistic. Are you going to add any weapons or keep it just like the prototype in the pictures? Look forward to seeing the completed version, just be careful installing the canopy, it is a real challenge! That was the hardest part of my Littlebird build. John Edited June 17, 2010 by 11bee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 17, 2010 Author Share Posted June 17, 2010 Yes I know. I decided to just go with what was in the box. I have tried ordering the Eduard set from few places and I guess it is out of production. So I gave up on that. Great looking Little Bird! It's proceeding very well.There's is one thing that I could bring up, but it's too late to correct ... ok, now I mentioned it. Alright then: as far as I know the instrument panel on the Little Bird is different than the one on the Loach (OH-6). The one you have intalled on your bird is the Loach-IP, which is some what T-shaped. The Little Bird's IP is more like a column. I admit I don't know if the MH-6H already had the "Column-IP", but since the MH-6E had it I desume that the H does as well. When I converted a Defender to an MH-6J I built the panel from scratch. Here's the article on ARC. As for the seat belts I use stretched lead foil and either PE or wire for the buckles. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EDWMatt Posted June 18, 2010 Share Posted June 18, 2010 Looking good, Steve! Glad you're putting those pictures to good use. You are correct in noting that that aircraft carried no markings at all. That was a real oddity, although I don't remember that ship in it's various guises EVER having any markings. We had a black 160th MH-60 for a short period at Edwards at about the same time that had the weird OD lettering that Gino mentions. The particular airframe is 81-23650, which always seemed to end up as a test ship. We had it at Edwards as a 500D (MH-6E/AH-6F) as a 530FF as shown in the pics, then as an "AH-6N" NOTAR and it later became the MELB prototype before McD/Boeing crashed it in flight test. As to the instrument panel, I think it may have still had the civil-style "pedestal" panel at that time. I know it had the wide 500MD/OH-6 style panel when it was the NOTAR. For belts in my helos, I like to use the Eduard WWII style US harnesses. These are exactly like what was in most Army helos of the period (other than the H-60s and Apaches, which had the rotary buckles). I usually use the pre-painted ones, but I suspect the 530 probably had black webbing (I honestly don't remember) so you'd need to repaint them. Are you going to put the orange "chicken sticks" on the tailboom like in the picture? Of course, those are a flight test artifact, so if you're building an operational ship, you wouldn't want to include them Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 19, 2010 Author Share Posted June 19, 2010 Matt, I would put them on, but I really can make out what their supposed to look like. I have never seen them before in my aviation career. Do you have any better pics of what you are talking about. Are you going to put the orange "chicken sticks" on the tailboom like in the picture? Of course, those are a flight test artifact, so if you're building an operational ship, you wouldn't want to include them Quote Link to post Share on other sites
salvador001 Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Nice one Steve, that is a fast build there, your AH-6 is turning out really good, about the seatbelts, hmm, if i dont have PE seatbelts, i use aluminum foil and some copper wires to make the seatbelt connectors, you should try that, its not that difficult. hope to see your birdie finished. Greets. Rod. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteveV22FE Posted June 19, 2010 Author Share Posted June 19, 2010 Matt, If you look at the shadow in this picture, there appears to be some sort of antenna array on the left side of the tail boom just forward of the vertical. Can you explain this? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hovering Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Are they 'chicken sticks' like this from the Matt's Army Flight test thread? You wouldn't want to see them getting chopped away... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Vesper Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Black numbers and US Army markings on an AH-6M. Slight hijack here, but whats up with the triple barrel gun on this bird? Is it 7.62 or a heavier caliber? Ves :) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arkhunter2002 Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 The GAU-19 is .50 cal link to wiki page HTH, Austin Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Vesper Posted June 20, 2010 Share Posted June 20, 2010 Thx Ark, I didn't know about that pea shooter . . . Ves Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shark 64 Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 Cant get too many OH 6 or its variants on this site. MY favorite helo. Great looking build. Have fun with the canopy...LOL Oliver Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EDWMatt Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 Matt,If you look at the shadow in this picture, there appears to be some sort of antenna array on the left side of the tail boom just forward of the vertical. Can you explain this? Steve, What I remember that antenna looking like was a square-ish mount that fared to a flat section where it met the fin. It had two blade antennas, the upward pointing one mounted to the left side of the box section and the downward one on the right. Don't remember what they were - our test aircraft didn't have mission equipment. There are all sorts of interesting 'greebles' on that aircraft. Did you notice the spike antenna sticking out from the left trailing edge of the horizontal tail. The pic Hovering re-posted of the EH-60B Delta shows the the 'chicken sticks' (or 'witness sticks') pretty well. The were cut in a 'finger' pattern. The purpose was (during autorotational touchdown testing) to see how close the main rotor was to striking the tailboom. I'll e-mail you a diagram of what they looked like. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hovering Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 (edited) Did you notice the spike antenna sticking out from the left trailing edge of the horizontal tail. I thought they (the right one is droopy) were static discharge wicks like on a stabilator on the UH-60s? edit: and I'd be wrong? Edited June 21, 2010 by hovering Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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