1/35 UH-1H Huey By lmagna

[mtaylor]

Now that I think about it.... While in my squadron stateside, we had to the Physical Condition Tests once a year.   Run 3 miles in 25 minutes, push-ups, and chin-ups.   Seems there was something else but I forget.  First time I did it, I wasn't the fastest and the Sarge-Major came along side.  Handed me his canteen and told me take a long sip.  It was beer.  Perked me right up...  he took one of my canteens of water and dumped it, reached into his pack and pulled out can and pour the contents (beer) into my canteen.  He did that all of us at rear and we picked up the pace.  

[lmagna]

That would have been quite the PT run! Would not have worked on me all that well. Early on, I was one of those who had been too young to drink before the service and the first few times I tried it, too stupid to stop. One night me and a couple of guys got SOOOOO drunk on beer that one of them passed out! I only WISHED I had passed out! We had been outside and all was pretty good and we managed to get the one guy back in before curfew. But when the warmer air and laying down hit for me I was no longer drunk I was SICK! I put everything that had gone down my throat over the last week and put into a toilet. Then I spent the next hour trying to find more down there from possibly when I was a child in diapers and make more deposits. I even heaved up stuff that I was going to eat the next day! All the while I was making primeval dinosaur mating calls, (At least that was what it sounded like to me) to someone I kept calling RALPH! To say the least I was NOT a happy camper. I have never been able to tolerate the taste of beer since! Even the smell is mildly upsetting to me even now 50+ years later. I'm strictly a hard liquor guy.

Edited February 12, 2020 by lmagna

[Old Collingwood]

I can see  you and mark doing that Huey  ride   and posting the vid on here  - that would be so cool.

 

OC.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Old Collingwood

[lmagna]

I would gladly act as your reporter OC. All you need to do is find me the $1600+ to get to Cape Town and the other paltry $300-400 to make the 15 minute flight! I may be Dinky Dau but even I think $3500-$4000 is a little beyond what most people would consider to be logical.

 

I would probably be better served if I was to contact the Museum Of Flight here in my home town and see if the flyable Huey they have could be chartered for a vet flight, and make a LARGE donation. That would possibly be doable, but somehow I doubt the American FAA would allow them to fly in that manner anywhere around here. It would scare all of the tree huggers or startle the occasional deer! Hueys are loud when you push them!

Edited February 12, 2020 by lmagna

[mtaylor]

There are places to do that. But I think the closest ones are in Nevada.   And who wants to fly around desert?

[Jack12477]

On 2/11/2020 at 11:16 PM, lmagna said:

I think your situation was not all that uncommon among "Older" guys. I believe that the military looked at you as more mature and stable than many of the kids

No, it was, in our case anyway,  more a matter of pay. Remember back in 1965-1967 an E1 in boot camp made about $90 a month, after boot camp they promoted you to E2 and raised your pay to $96 a month. We had a Sergeant Major (SMAJ) who tried to get us promoted as fast as possible for the pay. For an E5 with less than 2 years service the pay was $211 a month, and we did not have a Mess Hall, Commissary, or any of those other amenities of the big bases, just an NCO club for meals or the Arsenal's civilian cafeteria and the cafeteria was only breakfast and lunch at economy prices, dinner was only available at the NCO Club with deeply discounted  military prices; otherwise it was off post and economy prices.  Because we had no Mess Hall, we did get a "food allowance" of $1.50 per day added to our base pay, except when we went on leave, then we did not get the food allowance while on leave... .   Of course that did not cover much.  

 

All enlisted ranks were members of the arsenal NCO club with only E4 and above allowed to vote or hold office, because it was only place single enlisted could eat on post.  We had less than 250 enlisted in ranks E3 to E5, and most if not all were College grads with a Bachelors degree in Science or Engineering; I know 50 of them held a Masters degree also.  The Officers were mostly ROTC, with similar degrees and in the rank of Captain or 1st Louie.  Our detachment commander, rank of Captain, held a PhD in Physics, they assigned him to the slot until his Clearance came thru, then he was reassigned to one of the Research depts. The Arsenal  commander was a full bird Colonel with 2 Masters degrees in Engineering; the Major General who commanded our higher command, which resided on the Arsenal,  held a Masters degree also.  The civilian employees outnumbered the military by about 3 or 4 to 1 back then. 

 

Of course we could get gasoline on post at the motor pool for about 10 cents a gallon, off post it was somewhere around 25 or 30 cents a gallon. So we tanked up on post. 

 

The Arsenal is still in operation today.  Altho the mission has changed. 

 

BTW - we often referred to ourselves as F Troop after the TV show that was popular back then; used to get the Sergeant Major a tad upset with us tho. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Jack12477

[lmagna]

Thanks for the insight Jack.

 

You certainly remember more about the guys you served with than I do. I remember about four guys in detail and a few more as people I was with a lot, but outside of that things get a little blurry. Maybe I was drinking as much as Mark says! 

 

I would have to dig out old pay records to see what I was making. I don't remember it as being very much. I know that I got a little more as I was married and my wife received  what they called a Class E allotment. Things added up a little better when I went overseas as well. I received base pay, (E4 by that time), flight pay that was I think about $65 a month, and combat pay that was $55 a month. Then we must not forget the all important Over seas duty pay of something like $1.57. That one always made me laugh! Of course all of that money was tax free. I sent most of it home as my wife's class E was not really enough to live on. She could have lived with her parents and saved money but she preferred not to. I also thought it was strange that flight pay was more than combat pay. I wondered if the Government knew something that it was not telling me!

 

I think your unit had a lot more degrees than we had. Most of our pilots, especially Warrants were college grads who signed up for OCS/flight school when their college deferment ran out. Several of our enlisted were also grads but in their case they had waited until they were drafted after their deferment ran out. They were a pretty small minority in our unit.

 

Interesting that your unit is still present and active. Not only as far as I can tell, is my unit gone but so is the base, heck, come to think of it so is the country! My Basic training base is gone, (Same base I was born in) my advanced infantry training base is still there but the unit is gone. It seems like there can be a few changes in 50 years. 

[Jack12477]

The Army had a program called "the Science and Egineering Program" which scooped up most draftees who had a degree in Science or Engineering and assigned them to slots at one of the Army's research facilities. That is how I wound up there.  Just sheer luck !

Edited February 12, 2020 by Jack12477

[lmagna]

29 minutes ago, Jack12477 said:

Just sheer luck !

No luck in having a marketable skill that even the Army had a use for! I'm certain you worked for it. I was not able to go to college until I got the use of the GI bill and even then it was pretty much a evening event four nights a week for years.

[reklein]

Hey Lou, Does Paul Allens FHC have a flying Huey? Have you been down there. Nice collection. I'm pretty sure Ill be there next Friday as I'm going to the big Train show in Monroe anad I want to show my friend FHC.

 

[lmagna]

To my knowledge their B model is flyable, but I have never seen them fly it. I am a little more aware of what they fly as almost always they fly over my house when ever they are up and about. Even if I didn't see it, I would hear it and I NEVER make a mistake on hearing a Huey. 

 

The schedule says that Saturday they are having a "Walk and Talk" on  the war in China WWII.

 

Down the street at the Boeing Museum Of Flight they have an H model that I am almost certain is also flyable. But I also don't know if they fly it. It is located in the Great Gallery.

 

If you have some time give me a ring and I can meet you for coffee or something. (PM follows) 

[lmagna]

Correction The Museum Of Flight H model is now down in Seattle at the main museum. 

[Old Collingwood]

Found this  Lou  - 

 

 

http://www.hueyvets.com/

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Thanks OC

 

I have seen their site before. They are fairly close to where I live. Only about 500-600 miles or so, as the crow flies. It is another organization where your money doesn't go far. For $150,000 dollars you even get a plaque with your name on it

[mtaylor]

5 hours ago, Jack12477 said:

The Army had a program called "the Science and Egineering Program" which scooped up most draftees who had a degree in Science or Engineering and assigned them to slots at one of the Army's research facilities. That is how I wound up there.  Just sheer luck !

 

Not sheer luck, Jack.   The Fairy Godmother Department did it.   (This particularly referenced in Heinlein's "Glory Road".  The Fairy Godmother Department is an elderly GS-5 lady who's usually out on sick leave.  When she does work it's only on Wednesdays for a half day.  She does good things for military guys when she can.) 

[lmagna]

OK................. This time I may have blown it. Yesterday on good advice I stripped off all of the Acrylic paint I had been using on the interior and started all over. I had a can of Model master gray primer. Honest that is what it said on the can! I hit all of the pieces I had assembled and would need painting. The deck and overhead. The engine bulkhead/padding. The pilot seats and instrument console, everything. I then went to bed. 

This morning even though I thought I had only slightly covered the parts by using short little blasts, (I wanted puffs but the can would only blast) the paint still felt a little tacky. So I waited until after diner. I had a scheduled visit to the doctor about some pain issues and I needed to locate and gather some tax stuff and automobile info foe upcoming taxes and insurance anyway so did  not go and check all day. So after diner on moved on into my corner and start gluing a few more parts. I still didn't like the feel of the primer but it seemed to be doing what it was supposed to do so I continued on.

 

I did some center console last fitting and locating and glued it into place. I also made a piece to allow the two rear bulkhead pieces to fit in place properly while waiting for the glue of installing them to dry, and glued them in place.

 

All this time I was becoming more upset about the lack of finish to the interior of the pilots doors! I know, most of the missing structure would be invisible after all the body closed it in but it still bugged me. So I looked at the aftermarket doors and sure enough the bottom of the door did have the missing detail. All would need to do would be to cut out the kit molded door. I checked the sizing of the resin door by placing it against the inside of the kit door and even tough there are no lines on the inside of the door it seemed to be a perfect match. I should have been more wary, This is the FIRST time that a resin part has matched up to a kit part or the kit its self. SO.......long story short I spent quite some time carefully cutting out the co-pilots door. Well over an hour and by the time I was done was admittedly a little more tense than normal. The door that had fit so well on the inside, was really quite sad looking sitting on the deck sitting  in the opening so carefully made by  removing the old door. Now when placed in the actual opening it became all too clear that it  was another part for this kit that would not fit or work! I was VERY upset as it looked like I had wrecked a major part of my model!

 

So after walking away for a few I gave it a good thought  and started trying a few things. This time without cutting or hacking at anything., If I wanted to build this kit with the one door open I would be OK. After all this was what the door had been designed for. But I pretty much had mi mind set on building with the doors closed and in flight, so that was not really an option at this time. I thought of cutting the door and window frames of both doors and gluing one to the other., but the more I thought about it the more nervous I became abut this solution. Luckily, before I did any more cutting  feeble little depressed brain stumbled onto what should have been the building method right from the beginning! 

 

All that is wrong with the kit door if you do not want to build the kit with open doors is the lower door panel is missing. So why not just replace the lower panel from the inside after reshaping the resin part to fit onside the lower door! It was almost a perfect fit anyway!

 

SO tomorrow I will try and repair the original door into place  and fit the lower panel. It's late and I'm tired so no pictures tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be different and it will not all be in the scrap heap! either way I promise pictures.

 

  

[Jack12477]

9 hours ago, mtaylor said:

The Fairy Godmother Department did it.

You don't know how true that is, Mark.  

[reklein]

Lou, are you saying the Museum of flight has a branch in Everrett.?

[popeye the sailor]

sorry to hear about it Lou..........I hope you can repair it  

[lmagna]

Yes, it is a triple kind of thing. You have your choice these days. You can do the "Future of Flight" tour, that I have never taken. It is primarily a tour of the factory here in Everett with a few displays and such. My kids took it last year when they came up and seemed to like it. As far as I know it is strictly a guided group type thing but I could be wrong.  https://www.boeingfutureofflight.com/gallery-exhibits 

 

Then there is the "Restoration and Reserve Collection" ( https://museumofflight.org/Explore-The-Museum/Aircraft-Restoration ) also here in Everett. It is technically not a museum in the normal sense but in many ways I like it better than the much more formal Seattle displays. As the name implies, it is where they restore the aircraft for display or flight status. They also store overflow aircraft there that they don't have room for down in the Seattle location. As a result, what you will get to see is subject to change at any given time. What I like the best about it is that, at least a number of years ago when I took my father-in-law there it was completely informal. While you had to be escorted around the facility it was in our case a one-on-one event. It was only us and our guide. He took us pretty much wherever we wanted to go and in most cases we were able to get up close or even into the aircraft we were interested in. I would bets describe it as he was more interested in keeping us safe from things going on in a working hanger than he was interested in protecting the aircraft from us like they do down in Seattle. A MUCH more hands on experience. Of course travel and parking was MUCH easier up here as well. Can't tell you for certain what you would see up here as it is always changing but if you are going down to Seattle anyway, or going  to Flying Heritage, then it is well worth the extra stop just a few blocks away in my opinion.

[lmagna]

43 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

I hope you can repair it  

So do I! It was clearly a case of blindly following the instructions, such as they are, rather than thinking for myself! SO STUPID! Well today will tell. If I can get the original door reinstalled and looking like it should then all will be OK and I can march forward a little wiser. If not, it will be a MAJOR mistake and I suppose I will have little option other than change the manner I was going to do the display. It will have to go from a flying display to a on-the-ground with the door open display.

[popeye the sailor]

things happen.......foresight is 1/2 of after thought.   to be honest.......this is a model that you really want to do.   perhaps trying this on a model that you don't care about would bring your skills back up to speed.  I've run into this many times.  I was away from plastic way too long,  and am going through some of the same mistakes that I used to battle years ago.  don't let it get you down or discourage you.   remember,  Murphy doesn't discriminate.......he jumps in wherever he can.   I hope you can save it  

 

I know it's not a Huey.......but I think you'll smile.

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Lou  what happened  - was it a case off the  new cut out area for the door now being too large for the door to fit in after you have worked on the inside of the  said door?  could you possibly make a false edge with thin plastic card  going around the edge of the door - this would hide any gap.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Hi OC

When I cut out the original door even with the very thin tool I used it of course left a gap all of the way around where the new door was going to have to fit. This was not only unavoidable but expected. I figured that I would locate the new door and install it with gap filling super glue and then fill in the remaining area with putty or something like Mr Color 500 or 1000. 

 

What happened is that while the cut was thin and matched the original door profile exactly, and it looked like the aftermarket door was an exact match for the original door, the window frame portion of the replacement door is off just enough that it cannot be used as a replacement when in the closed position. I am dealing with a gap of less than 1mm at the widest point but still off enough that it would be very difficult to deal with using the aftermarket door. It is just another case of poor fit that I have run into on every case of using the aftermarket resin parts that are supposed to be designed for this model. It is VERY frustrating to say the least.

 

I will take some pictures of the problems with the door and then re-glue the original door today and hopefully I will be skilled enough to hide the fact that it ever happened. Then I will alter the after market door to work on the inside of the kit door like it should have been designed in the first place and will hopefully have the final look of a 3D door that I was looking for in the beginning.  

[lmagna]

2 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

I know it's not a Huey.......but I think you'll smile.

I have never seen the movie and now I think I know why. That stuff is strange even for Hollywood!

 

I don't remember the name of the helicopter used for the dust off, (I'm sure Mark knows) but I do know the Marines thought highly of them. Another version of what I think is the same helicopter, has to be, (In my humble opinion) one, if not the most UGLY helicopter ever designed! They for some reason extended the nose and put some kind of intake on the end of that and the result is just plain UGLY!😝

[lmagna]

OK, as I promised here are some pictures of my blunder.

 

First off here is the doorway that formerly held a perfectly good door, at least on the outside!

Here is what I got to see after spending at least an hour carefully measuring and cutting out the above doorway!

Now I think you can see why I was anything but a happy camper! I was pretty certain that I had destroyed a perfectly good model in my desire to fix what I considered a shortcoming that would have probably never even been noticed by anyone but me! 

 

Only after comparing the original and aftermarket door was it clear that it was never going to work as a closed door, and if I could not do something I would need to alter my intended display method. 

 

This picture does show the additional lower door detail I wanted to include in my finished model. The upper detail of rivets around the window frames and the leather grab handle for the co-pilot on the vertical frame were not so important as they are so small that they would never be seen and besides the "glass" would cover these details when installed later.

So last but not least it was time to place the original door back into place and see if I will be able to back up and save this side of the helicopter! My feeling at this point is that it is doable, especially if I was CDW, OC, RGL or Popeye. Now the question is "can I do it?" If I am right it should only take a little superglue and some putty or Mr Color and I should be able to hide it well enough that only us here and myself will know. There is a little place at the bottom of the rocker panel where the knife slipped but that can possibly be written off as normal wear and tear. We were always patching up the skin of our Hueys for one kind of damage or another.

  

Hopefully the next time you see this side of the chopper it will be all well and healed again!

 

My intention for the aftermarket doors is to do what should have been done in the first place. Cut off the window frames and thin the lower inner panel to fit in the lower kit door. There was never any reason to make a design that required removing the kit door for this detail. If the builder wanted open doors then they could do what I did and open them up with a knife and use the original material with the aftermarket lower panel.

 

Thanks as always for looking in. It helps a lot.

[Old Collingwood]

2 hours ago, lmagna said:

I have never seen the movie and now I think I know why. That stuff is strange even for Hollywood!

 

I don't remember the name of the helicopter used for the dust off, (I'm sure Mark knows) but I do know the Marines thought highly of them. Another version of what I think is the same helicopter, has to be, (In my humble opinion) one, if not the most UGLY helicopter ever designed! They for some reason extended the nose and put some kind of intake on the end of that and the result is just plain UGLY!😝

Its the H-34  Lou,   use to be known over here built by Westland  as the Wessex.

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

Lou give me 5 to mess about with one of your pics to show you an idea  you could try.

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

Lou   you could try this  - use the  better doors  and hold in place first  with tiny strips of plastic card that could imitate the hinges, then use thing plastic card  strip the right thickness  on the top  - down the front window side and on the bottom, but leaving a thin gap down the  locking side,

 

I have shown what I mean in your pic  below.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

18 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

Its the H-34  Lou,   use to be known over here built by Westland  as the Wessex.

Yeah that's the beast. I still think it looks like a hound dog with a top knot!

 

Yes  I could do like you show and shim out the door frame to fit again. That was the first possible remedy  that came to mind last night when I saw what I had done.  but it would be a lot of very fiddly work with questionable results. By the time I got the window frames fitted I don't think they would be even and would always look odd to anyone looking at that side of the model. 

 

Thanks for the help