Subject: Re: MH-60L article
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "J.C. Bahr" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 12:27:32 -0800

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: J.C. Bahr 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 5:35 PM
  Subject: MH-60L article

  1/72 Italeri MH-60L DAP 

  by J.C. Bahr
  --------------------

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo MH601.jpg here  

  Here are some photos of the Italeri 1/72 UH-60A that I converted into an MH-60L DAP from the 160th SOAR.  I won't go into its history as thats been pretty well covered in other areas of the internet and books that are available.

  I'll preface this with saying that I'm generally not a huge helicopter fanatic, but I've always had a love of heavily armed gunships and when I came across the DAP Lima model Blackhawks... that had the shortened ESSS pylons... with the fixed forward mini-guns... and the 30-mm chain gun... and the sinister black paint scheme... I couldn't resist doing one!

        Click on images below to see larger images
       
        Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH603.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH603.jpg   Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH604.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH604.jpg  Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH605.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH605.jpg  

  Unfortunately, there are no MH-60L kits available in 1/72 scale, so this was going to be an interesting conversion to say the least.  Luckily, Italeri includes some of the parts needed to get there with their UH-60, but there's a lot that has to be modified or scratch-built.  On this kit I had to scratch-build the refueling probe and its attachments to the fuselage and landing gear sponson.  The fuel tanks and ammo boxes inside the cabin were scratch-built.  The ESSS pylons were shortened.  The FLIR turret and radome in the nose were cobbed together from the different noses of old bombs I dug out of my bottomless spares box.  The plume detectors on the nose and on the rear vertical stabilizer were scratch-built from Evergreen styrene plastic and rod.  Most all of the external antennas and flare boxes were scratch-built from Evergreen plastic and rod.  The antenna on top of the vertical stabilizer was cut from thin brass wire.  The mini-guns are resin copies of the barrels from the mini-guns in the Italeri MH-47E and had the rest scratch-built along with their mounts.  The M230 chain-gun was robbed from an aborted Italeri AH-64 that was doing a terrible job at trying to masquerade as a D-model Apache.  The chain-gun took additional modifying with plastic.  I also had to drill out a few additional openings in places that Italeri had moulded as solid plastic.

  The kit itself does not have the greatest of fit between parts, so a lot of finesse was required to get everything lined up half way decently and then filled and sanded without destroying other surrounding details that there was no way around.  Removal of the right side pilots door was required as it's moulded with the right fuselage half whereas the left side door is a separate item.  Too bad Italeri couldn't have moulded both of them separately like they did with the main sliding cabin doors.

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo MH602.jpg here  

  Painting was a cinch for this one... overall flat black on most everything!  All other exterior details were picked out in their respective colors and it was time for the markings.  Uhm, WHAT markings????  Yeah, there are not a whole lot of markings to be found on the airframes of DAP's, mostly consisting of airframe numbers in places, some artwork on occasion and "UNITED STATES ARMY" on the tail.  These are interesting on the DAP's in that they're usually done in olive drab or dark helo drab giving the DAP's a kind of 'reverse-image' of normal U.S. Army choppers.  There aren't really any DAP-specific decals available in this scale, so I made up my own with my lazer printer and white decal paper.  I decided I wanted my model to have a little character, so I went with the one that had "Southern Comfort" on the sides of the engine nacelles.  I printed a black surround to my green letters and applied the decals to the kit, then touched up the edges of the black surround to blend the decals in.  Not the most perfect way of replicating this, but it works if you've got some special markings that you absolutely must have on your kit.

        Click on images below to see larger images
       
        Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH606.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH606.jpg  Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH607.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH607.jpg  

  I'm amazed at how well this turned out, considering it's my first completed helicopter model in approximately... oh, about 22 years since my last one!  It was a little different experience from my normal aircraft staple, but was fun nonetheless.  Could've been even better if there were better Blackhawk kits out there for this scale and after-market companies doing a better job of filling in the blanks with resin accessories like they do for the larger scales!  (hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink... can I spell it out any better for ya????)  God knows the larger scale builders have an easier job (by way of size) of scratch-building this stuff in their scales than us small scalers!... but look who keeps getting all the dang gravy from the after-market!

  Anyhow, I know there's some mistakes and omissions with this kit, but I can live with it as there's only so many things I'm willing to attempt with this scale before letting it be as it is.  Eventually I hope to showcase this one alongside an MH-47E and an AH-6 in similar markings, but that may be a ways down the road yet.  Priorities, priorities...

  J.C.

  P.S. - I'd just like to send a special shout out and thanks to Albert Moore for all his inspirational chopper builds.  I hope I've done you proud with this one buddy!

        Click on images below to see larger images
       
        Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH608.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH608.jpg  Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo MH609.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo MH609.jpg  

  Photos and text © 2007 by J.C. Bahr