G'day all ... those of you who may have encountered me around the traps will know that I am a diehard 1/35th armour builder.

However, I was recently enticed across to The Dark Side of 1/48 aircraft by the release of Academy's Ch53-E Super Sea Stallion.

Nowadays I am very office-bound and 9 to 5, but in another life I was a foreign correspondent, and I covered a fair bit of Somalia in the air back in '93 riding in the bowels of these big bad birds with either troops or cargo.

I'll say right now that I intend this project to be a "no brainer" ... just a straight build with minimal enhancement.

Ever since Somalia I was wanted to build a Stallion, but I could only find 1/72 examples, and the Revell offerings (most of which were "Jolly Green Giants") looked a bit too much like hard work.

Now I haven't put a micrometer across the Academy kit, but I must say I am impressed with the common sense engineering and it captures the "look" of the Stallion well enough to evoke all sorts of fond memories.

I particularly like the one piece clear cockpit front, which allows the interior to be completely finished before it is "sealed up" behind the single part.

I've found that any effort expended on vehicle or aircraft interiors is largely wasted and I will only be adding some seat belts to the pilot seats and seeking out some finer .50 cal door guns.

However, I do have to question why the cargo compartment roof and walls have pin ejector marks on the internal (ie those with the detail) surfaces when they could easily have been forever banished away sandwiched against the inner walls of the fuselage halves!

At the end of the day I didn't bother with them (I plan to firmly set the finished model down on a base) but filling them will be a tedious (and in my opinion, avoidable) job, especially around the ribbed section at the rear.

That said, Academy got it right on the cargo compartment floor, which has the ejector pin marks underneath, and hence they are ultimately invisible once it is in place.

I have deviated from the instructions (as most of us do) and joined the internal walls and ceiling for painting as well and gluing the floor in to place into the port side fuselage half.

The cargo compartment has now been painted (gull grey with blue grey cladding) and given a light wash and scuffing.

I plan to have all doors open, which will make the task of firmly joining the cargo compartment walls to the outer fuselage halves - something which will need to be done progressively - easier.

The inner walls go over the side windows, and I glued the clear inserts in to the outer shells after masking their outer surfaces.

Anyway, here's a couple of progress pictures in this, my first submission to a model aircraft forum!

The freshly painted cargo compartment:



Lightly weathered, windows installed and ready to go together:



I should have the fuselage in one piece in the next few days and will post an update.

Well, due to the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response I've received to my first ever post on a model aircraft forum, here's a few more snaps of my Stallion in progress.

I bonded the assembled cargo bay to the port side of the fuselage half, to which I had added the floor.

I used clamps and pegs until the adhesive set, and then attached the starboard side fuselage half, repeating the process.

Needless to say, I held off from any advanced assembly and painting of the cockpit, because some very commonsense engineering makes this possible after the fuselage halves are joined.

There will be some filling, sanding and re-scribing, but nothing serious.

You will note that the back wall of the cockpit has those dreaded injection pin holes, which could have easily been hidden away on the other side, which is sandwiched against the front wall of the cargo compartment ... considering how nicely the kit's engineered, these little bugbears are disconcerting.

I have since installed the bottom panels of the fuselage and the tail section and puttied the joins, which I will leave to set ovenight.

Now the basic building block is intact it's ownards and upwards, with the next step obviously the detailing of the cockpit.

Let's see if this post get's even more response than the last!

The bare cockpit:



The assembled fuselage halves, port and starboard side ... note the masked windows:





The underside of the fuselage before the panels were installed ... the engineering's quite sound and banishes the dreaded centre seam, but I would have liked some locating tabs to line things up level:



The rear underside .. the hatch is just flapping about until I install the window after painting:



The front underside before the panel was installed:



As I wrote before, the bottom panels have been glued in place and puttied, and I will sand the lot in to shaape and re-scribe some lines before moving on to detailing the cockpit.

Hi Mick

Welll, sometimes the few a/c modeller here are just busy with other things ... I like your model very much!! And please post your progress pix!




This was something I could not get over too. I've seen the kit and instantly thought that it would have been logical to IM the part with the ejector marks on the not visible side .. just stupid... especially when seeing the rest of the kit designed that well.

Here is a pic from the model built by my clubmate Sebastian Adolf:



some more here: Sikorsky CH-53E

as I wrote ... keep it comming!

best wishes

Steffen

Thanks for the response, as I stated earlier, I'm, up until now, exclusively a 1/35 armour builder.

The pin marks are a minor gripe, as they won't be seen once I set the bird down on a base, but they are a blemish when you consider the rest the design is so well done.

One thing I remember about the Stallions in Somalia was the monster exhaust and grime stains, and what appeared to be a straight grey finish ... I will need to dig out some slides and scan them.

There were also a few in multi-coloured camouflage, just as grimy, and none seemed to have the refuelling probe of the other front end attachment.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the project because it is different, and it's a great kit, even for an aircraft novice like me.

Now all the cargo bay internals are done and the halves are joined, the should (literally) fly ahead from hear.

Next gripe, the exhaust have pin ejector marks on the inside, whereas they would have been much easier to clean up on the outside ... I'll see if there's a Dremel attachment with will sort them out, and the internal seam.

More pix tomorrow.

Missed this one the first time around. Another reason we need a Helicopter Forum here. The helo posts are all over the place. Edit: Hey now we have a Helo Forum!!!

Your -53 is looking great. Good job on it so far Mick. The kit still looks great for all its shortcomings. Keep us posted.

Hi Mick,

First time I have seen this too, she's looking great !

Keep the pics flowing... we're keen to see the progress.
We can now track the build now we have got a dedicated helo forum too..

Have a think about entering this into the Guardian Angle Helicopter Campaign, when completed you get a badge attached to your call sign

Anyway, its a nice subject, and I look forward to seeing more.

Stevie B

Hi Mick,

Great job you are making. I am accompanying it from the first post, because I also have one of these, but I am gathering courage to begin.
I'll subscribe to topic to see step by step the assembly, for future references.
As you mentioned seatbelts and probably you already know, it is worth to remind, Eduard has two sets to improve that helo, CH-53 FE364 Super Stallion Interior and 49026 CH53E Super Stalion cargo seatbelts.

See you later,
Ramao

I apologize for not seeing this sooner, yeah these kind of posts disapair fast. Anyhow your Stallion is looking good so far, seems that you have a battle plan and it’s working out. I hear ya on those sink holes, it seems that if they only thought it over another minute they see that the inner walls and ceiling needed to be turned over. Other than that it is a great kit. It may have it’s flaws but I’d rather happy to see the kit released.

I myself has this kit and has been working on and off the last few months. I haven’t posted any pics yet as I’m doing a full build feature. I’m also using Eduards PE sets, exterior, interior and cargo seat belts, which could be seen in my profile.

I was a bit disappointed after opening the box to find that it lacked fuselage detail, just like the CH-46. Soft, missing panel lines and rivets. It’s really no big deal, I scribed in new panel lines and plan on using a seamstress pounce wheel to make up the rivets.

Again your Stallion is look great and looking forward to be seeing more progress photos. Oh…what are your plans on the rotor blades, open or closed and which markings are you going to use.

Joe

Well, the basic "building block" is in one piece.

You'll note I need to polish out some sanding marks, and a bit of re-scribing (a skill I'll need to learn) will be in order.

The panel under the tail went on with no problems, but the main piece under the fuselage suffered from a lack of locating tabs (it just basically butts up against the edges of the fuselage halves).

Now it's a case of a clean up, some scribing, and then I'll start work on the cockpit before sealing it up.

The rear cargo hatch ... note the dreaded injection pin holes ... but I didn't worry about them because this bad bird will be set on a base with the rotors extended.



The underside panels in place:





Anyway, I'll probably put a few more pics in later this week. Thanks for the feedback so far!

Well, now the halves are together, it's time to detail the cockpit so I can seal up the fuselage.

The fit of the halves and verious panels wasn't bad, but one thing I've notice is a total absence of raised detail, only panel lines, which according to this reference photo is incorrect:



The absence of such detail is a mystery to me ... however, I wanted to build this kit as a "no brainer" essentially from the box, so I'll live with it (there are so many armoured vehicle hulks in my modelling retreat awaiting fiddly ehancements, and I don't want this project to join them).

Getting back to the kit progress, I've put the basic innards into the cockpit:



You'll note I've pre-painted the upper windows clear green ... this is the first time I've used it an it's weird stuff. After getting lousy results with a brush I sprayed it, but it went on pretty thick and some runs may need polishing out.

In theory in the side of the window frames should be black, but that would mean another round of difficult masking, so what I plan to to is give the masked exterior a coat of black before the final exterior coatm which should do the trick.

As you can see, there is plenty of scope for extra detailing in the cockpit, but I don't see the point when there are so many basic details missing from the fuselage panels:



As it turns out, unlike many aircraft kit, almost all of the cockpit is visible through the many windows, so a bit of work will be needed to pick out the details.

Here's a snap of the painted components and cockpit interior:



I've also fitted the engines and drop tank pylons, which fitted flawlessly:



Now it's just a case of letting the paint dry painting some details and fitting the clear front panel.

Then it will be on to fitting out the exterior ... I will be re-scribing some panel lines, which will be a skill I will have to learn.

All the internals are now in place and sealed up!

As much as I was tempted to add at least seat belts, I didn't see much when there's thousand of rivets missing from the fuselage ... this is pretty much becoming an out of the box review.

I couldnt see much point for the decal for the centre and overhead consoles, but the one for the dashboard actually worked quite well and saved quite a bit of work.

One aspect I really like about this kit, which is apparently the norm for many modern aircraft kits, is how all the cockpit windows are moulded in to a single piece.



It starts to get pretty crowded in there once the overhead consoled and dash go in ... I used a dab of "Liquid Nails" on top of the overhead console to secure it to the roof as I thought conventional glue may have frosted the glass, which would have been a cow of a job to polish off.



Here's the cockpit in place ... obviously I'll need to mask the windows before proceeding:



Inaccuracies and ommissions aside, this is a really well engineered kit, and I'm enjoying the "no brainer" project immensely.

Hi Mick,

its looking great matey ,

the cockpit interior looks quite well detailed as it is,, and will look magic thro those windows.
Keep the progress updates coming, its great to see the model evolve, and to see how you overcome some of the issues.

( all adds to my own learning curve too )

I am enjoying the updates keep em coming !

Regards

Stevie B

Hi Mick!

Nice build so far!

The kit seems to be a really good one that have that perfect fit!

I agree on the ejecton marks, both my CH-46 and KV-107 are infested with´em too!
Don´t know why they couldn´t have turned the pieces around on the sprues!

Painting the interior frame color from the outside, and then the cammo colors are common practice for aircrafts and helos.
Works really well and saves a lot of masking (and time!).

Masking windows are one of my most dreaded tasks so I always try to find an easier way!

Eduard makes masking sets for most Helos.
Makes the masking a breeze, so I use them whenever I can, but It has to be the Yellow ones like this;

http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?FULL=EDEX185

I have used them on my SH-3H Seaking, and they fitted and worked perfectly!

I love the CH-53, but I´m still waiting for the Vietnam-era "Jolly Green Giant"!

Looking forward to see more of your Super Stallion!

Cheers!

Stefan E

Your Stallion looks great! I might have to pick one up myself. Yes, it has a few flaws, but so what? It's in 1/48th scale, at least. And it's not an Apache or a Cobra!

Hi MIck,
I've been a Defender reader for some years, i like your work. It is good to see you here. I haven't caught any of your posts before. Very nice work on the CH-53. I've been looking at this one myself and your build has convinced me to add it to the stash. It looks like it goes together really well. You're doing a very tidy job.

Graeme.

Looks good, but it is too bad that the latest update on the build is almost a year old. Maybe Mick changed job again and is out and about in the world.

Wow... Great build so far. Can't wait to see it on the 1/48 "tarmac"