1/72 Fujimi CH-46D HC-11

USS Camden

by Thomas Neuss

I saw a photo of this helicopter in a magazine a few weeks ago and thought that this would be a great model for my showcase.

The heli was on USS Camden in 2003 and participated in Operation “Iraqi Freedom”.

The kit is the well-known Fujimi kit of the Sea Knight in 72 scale.

There will be a lot of great models come up in the future with the new 48 scale Frog from Academy, but I didn’t want to wait.  And 48 is not my scale... .

I wanted to do this special scheme and I wanted to add some more detail to the heli so it took some more work and some wire, plastic rod and sheet and some parts from the spare box to finish the model.

I added the complete inner structure and build the seats mostly scratch.

I detailed the doors, the rotor heads, the antennas, and added both stations fort he .50 cal mg.

And I wanted to show parts of the upper doors and hatches in open position for maintanance, so cut out the kit parts.

Because the original parts where too thick I made them from metal foil, filler and plastic stripes. The mechanic parts are also made from plastic parts and wire.

Click on images below to see larger images

The painting was done with Gunze-colors, as usual.

I started with the standard three tone grey finish and painted the flag after masking the heli.

I weathered the standard grey parts of the heli but not the flag, as the nose art was applied much later so it is not as weathered as the rest of the aircraft.

The yellow color of the open hatches added some more color to the thing and also brought some “life” in it.

The decals are from different sheets, some from Superscale sheets, some from the spare box and some markings where handpainted.