Academy 1/48 Boeing Vertol CH-46E Sea Knight

with Eduard interior, exterior and seat belt photo-etched sets, ResKit resin wheels and AOA decals

HMM-264 ‘Black Knights’, US Marines Corps, USS Bataan 2006

Modellers of 1/48 rotorcraft are fortunate that the range of operational US tandem designs by the pioneering Piasecki company (subsequently Vertol and then Boeing Vertol) can now be made in this scale, ranging from the H-21 Workhorse through the HUP Retriever, the H-46 Sea Knight and the almighty CH-47 Chinook. In 2004, Academy tooled the first of multiple versions of the H-46, starting with this boxing of the USMC CH-46E. At the time it was widely hailed as accurate and a pleasure to build, but (frighteningly) 2004 is 19 years ago, and things have moved on.

I have decided to try and make at least one helicopter a year, and since this kit is the oldest in my stash, its turn to be built arrived. Over the years I had acquired an Eduard BigEd PE set, comprising interior, exterior and seat belt sets, and the ever-useful masks, some ResKit resin wheels and a set of markings by AOA Decals. The latter are unusual in that they cover the CH-46, CH-53 and AV-8B from HMM-264 ‘Black Knights’ when deployed on the USS Bataan in 2006, and thus only provide the main and unique markings. Stencils and national insignia would need to come from the kit.

If I can, I like to centre a project around a particular feature that’s a bit different. When perusing reference photos and comparing them to the plastic in the kit, what became obvious was the fictional surface detail moulded by Academy. The real thing is festooned with positive rivets, often somewhat wonky, with almost no panel lines. The kit, on the other hand, provides deep and wide recessed panel lines. An early decision was to fill all that and represent the rivets with resin decals made by Archer Fine Transfers. I knew they would be out of scale and that I could never replicate the pattern closely, but I hoped they would give the flavour of what they look like.  At the time, Archer rivets were what was mainly available, and so £80 later, I had enough to do this aircraft. Quinta and HGW have since released similar, and probably better, products at a quarter of the price.

Unsurprisingly, Academy’s plastic is very well moulded, but the detail is chunky compared to present expectations. I can live with that, but what I couldn’t live with were all the numerous ways in which the kit did not match reality. Some of this is not Academy’s fault – there were lots of changes made to the E during its lifetime and I wouldn’t expect all of them to be included. But others are less excusable – the box art and painting instructions, for example, are more representative of what should be in the box. I was fortunate enough to have access to some walkaround photos of this particular airframe during the same cruise, and some Googling produced more, which gave me a great basis for the changes I would need to make.

The Academy plastic is quite well moulded but the surface detail is very simplified, over-emphasised and largely fictional.
Some PE is better soldered than glued. I use a homemade syringe (heat-stretched plastic tube) to dispense flux.
For solder I use small solder balls. These are 0.65mm and held in place by the flux.
The finished result. Some residual flux still needs to be cleaned up.

The first point of order was to start with the surface detail. Aside from some prominent panel lines around the rotor pylons, the rest were all filled with thick super glue mixed with VMS CA powder. Second was to address the rotor blades, which should be drooped a little. Using a jig made from a steel rule and a clamp I dunked them in boiling water for 30-40 seconds before quenching in cold water. Unfortunately, I was a little over-enthusiastic and the droop is somewhat over-pronounced.

Most of the panel lines were filled with a mix of thick CA and VMS filler powder.

After sanding down (which took ages!) there are still some gaps, which appear as the little white flecks where sanding dust has gathered.
These gaps are filled with small applications of black CA.
A layer of Mr Primer Surfacer 1000 shows the sanding has been effective.
The rotor blades need the droop to be added in, which I achieved with an impromptu jig made from a steel rule, a clamp and some magnets. The whole lot was dunked in near-boiling water for 30-60 seconds, followed by cold water.

Painting rotor blades is boring and yet those on this CH-46 weathered in a very interesting pattern. I decided to paint them early to get them out of the way. I couldn’t interpret the photos I had clearly, so engaged in conversation with several Sea Knight mechs online. Apparently, those used on this deployment would have had a metal leading edge added to the blades to protect them from sand, but the sand caused the paint to wear away, leaving the metal exposed. A protective black tape was also applied that would flake away. My strategy for replicating this was to base coat the blades in shades of black using a lacquer paint with an aluminium leading edge. I sealed this with VMS Satin Varnish and then overlaid it with various shades of Tamiya acrylic airbrushed through a mottle mask. I could then use a brush dampened with X-20A thinner to gently abrade the leading edges to reveal the metallic shades.

Here’s what the curve looks like. The blade has been painted in dull dark silver ready for an overcoat of black.
To match the reference photos of this airframe the leading edges of the rotor blades were chemically sanded with IPA through the black shades to the underlying metallic paint. This had been protected with Gunze GX113 Flat Clear.

The rotor hubs themselves are much less complex than reality and do not stand up to close scrutiny. Aside from adding the PE Eduard provide (initially backwards!), I did not enhance them any further. When they were added at the end, I could not get the vertical linkages to meet the rotor arms in the correct place, and so mine are a fudge. Don’t look too closely!

Rotor head detail enhanced by the Eduard PE.
Rotor heads painted in MRP NATO and Tyre Black. The Eduard rotor link arms have been fitted the wrong way around and were later corrected.

Lots of other changes needed to be made early on. This particular Sea Knight didn’t have the winch fitted, but there are some bolts where it should be. These were represented by some very fine spare parts from Hasegawa A-4 kits. The flotation bags the instructions have you fit to the sides should be omitted, but there’s a lot of prominent raised detail to add where they should go. I punched 0.6mm discs from very thin plastic card; they’re a bit overscale but close enough for me. That would turn out to be true for most of the detail I would add.

Bolts where the flotation bags fit were punched from thin plastic card and glued on with Tamiya Extra Thin.

There should be a boxy intake on the port fuselage side, above the windows. This was fashioned from a part from the spares box. Similarly, the GPS dome on the spine needed to be added, along with a pipe-like feature in the same place. The large black antennae above and below the fuselage are the wrong shape and I corrected them using plastic rod and a little fillet of super glue. The list of these minor changes was only to grow.

The large kit aerials are not the correct shape. I modified them using some plastic rod and superglue.

Initially I was quite pleased with the interior provided by the kit, but then I started looking at photos, and realised how much detail was missing. In a fit of stupidity, I thought I’d give scratchbuilding the masses and masses of wiring and pipework that line the interior a go. A couple of hours later I had added a very small amount of badly executed detail and decided to call it a day. I’ve learned that scratchbuilding interior detail is something I just cannot get motivated to do well. Since I planned to close the tail door anyway, fortunately not much would be visible past the guns. This also meant I didn’t need to remove all the ejection pin marks as most of them would be invisible.

The interior is pock-marked with ejection pin scars. Those I cared about removing were filled with CA and powder.

The seats, on the other hand, remained exposed, and a happy few hours were spent adding all the etched belts. The red canvas adds a nice splash of colour, and I could ignore most of the seat legs as, again, they could not be seen. Those that could were replaced by thinner plastic rod. A missing jump seat behind the cockpit was added using a UH-60 part.

The Eduard PE belts were annealed before shaping and being stuck to the seats. This burns the paint off but I always prefer to repaint them anyway.
There are six shades of black on the cargo floor – those in the photo plus the black primer.
The jump seat is missing and added from an old Revell H-60. Some cabling was replicated using lead and copper wire, but I lost interest in doing this very quickly…
Interior painted in Mr Color 317 Gray. It intentionally fades to black to the rear to hide the lack of detail.

Painting and decalling in the interior is complete prior to joining the halves together.

Closer shots of the front bulkhead and added seat. This is very simplified compared to the real thing.

Floor and one side installed. I only added the visible legs to the seats towards the front, made from plastic rod.

Roof installed in the starboard side. There’s no need to paint under the seats.
Seat belts all painted.

A further detail added at this stage were at least 19 little vents around the fuselage, made from 0.6mm and 0.3mm Albion Alloys brass tubing. These litter the fuselage and are quite visible in photos once you see them. They are also noticeable for how badly installed they are on the real thing! There are definitely more that I could have added, especially on the underside of the fuselage.

The fuselage is also littered with small pipes of various diameters. I represented some of these with Albion Alloys brass tubing.
The bolts are 0.6mm in diameter, as is the wider tubing. The narrow pipes are 0.3mm.

The clear porthole windows fit pretty well, but are a little proud. Several of them I filled with UV-setting clear resin and sanded and polished them down, which improved their appearance somewhat.

I filled the gaps round the portholes to the rear with UV glue. I did not treat the forwardmost portholes as the risk-reward ratio was not worth it.

It then came time for the interior to be trapped in between the fuselage halves. As advertised back when the kit was first released, the fit was quite good and I used super glue for all the major joins. The openings at the front of the rear rotor pylon were cut out and filed to shape as this is quite distinctive in photographs. The panels here open outwards, so there should be a panel line along the fuselage seam in several places. Also added to the tail were several handhold panels that were missing; I scribed several but missed a few.

Fuselage halves joined with superglue and awaiting sanding.
Lots of fold-out steps are missing from the rear fuselage. I used a PE airbrake from the spares box as a template for rescribing some of them. Also note the cut out openings on the leading edge of the rotor housing.

Fitting the clear windscreen parts was surprisingly easy, but the framing is way too thick. I tried to ameliorate this by blending the clear parts into the fuselage with two-part polyester filler, which is super smelly but sets super fast and sands very smoothly.

Academy moulded the landing lights integrally with the windscreen. These were painted silver and then Tamiya Clear Blue.

The framing on the clear parts is too prominent, so I used two-part polyester body filler to blend it in. This stuff stinks – use a mask and ensure good ventilation!

After sanding the parts are nicely blended in.
Eduard’s PE engine mesh is not particularly accurate and the parts do not fit together well, but it’s still an improvement over the plastic kit parts. I used the kit parts as a former and soldered the mesh into shape.
Added surface detail to the port side.
And on the starboard side. The step below the grill is recessed.
Flotation bag area completed and awaiting the resin rivets.

With the fuselage together I needed a decent layer of light-coloured primer to begin the tedious task of adding the rivets. These come on a continuous layer of decal film and needed to be cut into strips. I started with a sheet about five years old and found the decal film quite rough and the adhesive less effective. The newer sheets I had were better, but no matter what I did, I could not eliminate the step at the edge of the film, and this is a flaw that dogs the finished model. Nevertheless, I pressed on, spending about two weeks just adding line upon line of resin rivets. They are overscale, but I still think the final effect is worth it compared to what comes in the box. I settled upon using Mr Mark Setter Neo as the main decal solution, applied under the rivets. The resultant finish is fragile – the rivets are liable to come adrift or flake off in places – but in other areas I managed to get away with some masking over them. They did mean, however, that dealing with any paint flaws by sanding or polishing would be impossible. I do not claim the pattern is accurate, and especially around the circular windows it should be considerably different; I just couldn’t think of a way of getting the circular pattern of rivets required other than by placing them one by one, and I certainly wasn’t going to do that!

Applying the Archer resin rivets. I used dividers to measure the lengths of decal required.

Riveting now completed. The pattern is representational rather than accurate.

Eventually they were added and I could push on with paint proper, starting with a generous coat of Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 Black. The two-tone grey scheme shows lots of tonal variation and painting over black would help with this, as would using different interpretations of the same shades by Mr Color, MRP, SMS, Hataka and AK Real Color: eight different bottles for the FS36375 and FS35237 were used in the end. The demarcation between the two greys was done freehand to try and reduce the contrast between the lighter and darker shades. From some angles, they appear very distinct, and from others they merge into one. The walkways are provided by Academy as decals, but I preferred to use these as templates and paint them. On this aircraft they were extremely worn and patchy, so I used a wide variety of colours airbrushed on and then overlaid later with some oil paints and dark shades of AK Interactive weathering pencils.

Under a black primer coat and an initial marbling of Mr Color 308 the rivets blend nicely into the airframe although the carrier film is disappointingly visible.
Building up the FS36375 Light Ghost Grey over the black primer.

The basic camouflage pattern laid out and the walkways airbrushed in with Mr Color 339 Engine Grey.
My first attempt at masking and spraying the upper fuselage national insignia was in the wrong place. It should be offset over the spine to be central over the fuselage. I corrected this later.
Painting these circular parts is always a challenge for me, which makes the die cut masks made by HiQ so valuable. MRP masking putty is an easy way to protect the surrounding area.
The result up close. All the sensors were painted this way and later covered with some Ammo Crystal Glass.

I had discovered when applying decals to the interior that the kit decals were not very sticky and rather stiff. This is a common problem for Academy decals of the era. To improve adhesion I applied a generous layer of X-22 Clear and used Mr Mark Setter (essentially a diluted PVA) under each decal. This did not fix the problem entirely and getting the kit decals to settle over the rivets was a lost cause. The AOA decals, on the other hand, were printed by Microscale and were incredible. Under a layer of Mr Color GX113 Matt there was no silvering at all.

The model after airbrushing and decalling has been completed. It awaits weathering with oils and pencils.

Exhaust stains from the rear exhausts are a very distinctive feature of the CH-46 and the pattern is not the same on either side. In fact, the fuselage is pretty asymmetric in general, and Academy did a good job of capturing this. The stains were airbrushed on using MRP NATO Black mixed with some Desert Sand to shift the tone to brown. Further subtle staining was added over the airframe with different shades of oil paint.

Numerous details still needed to be attended to: the navigation lights were smashed from heated clear sprue pushed through an Eduard PE template, Academy didn’t provide the blade aerials for under the fuselage so mine are from the spares box, as was the landing light at the front and the tail light at the rear. The ECM boxes on either side of the tail were missing their wiring and attachment points, the former made from lead wire and the latter from scrap sprue.

Removal of the masks is always stressful: ‘Has it worked?’ ‘Er, sort of’. The inner surface of the cockpit was covered in a film of material which I think is overspray that came through the front rotor mast hole I forgot to plug. In any case, it looked horrible. I was resigned to doing nothing but discovered a Covid LFT throat swab could just about be manipulated through the side door to wipe the deposit away. The windows down by the rudder pedals were a lost cause and they remain marred.

Disaster! Some kind of overspray is stuck to the inside of the clear parts. It can be wiped off, but access is difficult.
Fortunately a Covid LFT throat swab can be used to get rid of most of it. Note the areas where the Archer resin rivets have flaked away due to poor adhesion. This was touched up later.

After many more touch ups all over the aircraft, which helped to add to its grubby appearance, it was almost done. ResKit’s wheels are sublime, with separate hubs and tyres. Don’t make the same mistake I did and over-sand the hubs – the rims should be very proud from the tyre. Getting them all square was rather easy and the flats were created by dragging the model over a sheet of 400 grit sand paper on a flat surface. The PE antennae posts on the underside were fitted on this airframe, but no wire aerial was present.

This transpired to be a much more involved project than I had intended it to be. The rivets were an obvious part of that, but I had not anticipated all the smaller modifications I needed to make. It was actually very enjoyable and stretched me in all kinds of ways, such as soldering the PE exhaust mesh. The Academy kit is clunky, but sound and amenable to being upgraded. The Eduard set was patchy, and large sections remained unused as either inaccurate for what I making or redundant – the replacement armour, for example, was as too thin as the kit plastic was too thick. AOA have provided some wonderfully interesting markings with great references and whilst it does not stand up well to close inspection, I think it makes an impressive addition to my display case. I am eyeing up the Academy 1/48 CH-53 in my stash with anticipation!

Year bought: 2004 (The Aviation Hobby Shop, London)

Year built: 2022 (New Addington, Croydon)

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