Italeri 1/48 UH-34J - The Big Orange Thing

[PrivatePublic]

So, I've never actually built a helicopter (although I have a couple sitting in the stash) but I picked this up on sale recently so here goes with a great big orange UH-34J Seabat

Serving in wars from Algeria to Vietnam in the armed forces of 25 countries, and across the world on every continent in other military and civilian roles, the Sikorsky H-34 proved to be a popular and successful aircraft with over 2000 built. Originally designed to anti-submarine warfare, it proved capable in humanitarian roles as well such as search and rescue. The J was a general purpose variant was primarily used for cargo and training purposes.

The kit

Some nice boxart of the German markings option


However, I'll be going for this version, in service with the US Navy out of Florida presumably in a rescue role though I'm not entirely sure on that



A quick look at the sprues shows a bit of flash on some of the smaller pieces and some blemishes on a couple of the clear parts, mostly the large, bulging side windows, which means a bit of extra clean-up work but nothing too bad





And a closer look at the surface detail on the fuselage which is pretty nice




And even a pretty nice set of PE for the main instrument panel and the many grilles all over this chopper


The orange paint job is similar to this D version, apparently currently located at the New England Air Museum on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum in Florida, though so far I haven't found a source for this specific aircraft/variant so if anyone knows more I'd appreciate the info!



There's a few more nice photos here, credit to Bill Maloney

[smokeriderdon]

I do t know about that particular bird, but the all over orange ones were also in service for arctic missions. I believe this is the same kit as the MRC one that I did. If so, it's a great kit and goes together with virtually no issues. The PE makes it even nicer.

[Tomcat64]

Welcome to the SIG mate - great to have you along

The detail on those fuselage parts looks really good, hopefully it won't put up too much of a fight before it all goes orange.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Awesome subject...following along for sure!

[digger303]

I like the livery/paint, very bright.

[PrivatePublic]

Hi all, thanks for the encouragement!

So I did some more digging around the internet trying to find any reference to that paint job and lo and behold, here it is in 1968, all credit to Neil Aird at https://www.dhc-2.com/Monthan_Memories.html, thanks Neil!



Presumably this is the photo, certainly the aircraft, that the kit markings are based on, along with a close up of the tail



Similarly, here's it's number-neighbour



HT-8 being a helicopter training unit and the UH-34J variant being primarily used for utility and training pretty much confirms that this particular bird was used for, well, training

I do t know about that particular bird, but the all over orange ones were also in service for arctic missions. I believe this is the same kit as the MRC one that I did. If so, it's a great kit and goes together with virtually no issues. The PE makes it even nicer.

Cheers. Before finding that photo collection above I was looking into the Arctic and Antarctic missions and came across this site http://www.vaq34.com/vxe6/h-34.htm. It has a wealth of images and info on VX-6/VXE-6 squadron aircraft operating in Antarctica including this example, credited to Larry Lister, apparently one of the squadron's members.



And this one, complete with a colony of penguins in the foreground



I can't imagine what it would've been like operating these things at the bottom of the world, I'm already freezing by the time it gets down to single digits C. It's certainly some good inspiration for the future so thanks for clueing me in

[Kevthemodeller]

A good old Wessex as it's known to us Brits, built under licence by Westland

Looking forward to this one coming together