1/48 Italeri/Cobra Company MH-60K (Part 1)

Two Special Ops Hawks

by Everett McEwan

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   I was inspired to build these two Blackhawks after watching my copy of Blackhawk down one night, yeah I know that neither are MH-60Ls but one is a Night stalker bird, and both carry Special Ops soldiers into battle and those who fly them are brave souls none the less.       

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     I started out with the Academy MH-60K kit and the Cobra Co detail set, but after I picked up the new Italeri MH-60G kit I decided to use this kit as my base (better detail) and throw together the other kit as a G (swapping parts) building both at the same time. I started with the interiors which were almost like a kit onto itself and I did a lot of scratch building to detail it.

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    The Cobra Co stuff is very good, but there are a few things missing from the set that I wish had been there, like the rear crew chief seats (which I built from plastic rod and Tamyia tape) and the seat frames for the pilot's seat (they are meant to collapse in the event of a crash).

     I built these frames up and they looked good, but in the end they were a bit too big, and I did not realize this until after I glued them in, oh well.  Also I cut up and detailed the roof area, and added the internal ribbing to the crew chief/gunners areas.
The resin cockpit was easy to paint (all black) and looked nice after some dry brushing. This whole process for both took well over a month.

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   The rest of the Cobra co stuff is to change the exterior of the helicopter, mostly the nose and tail.  The nose is easy to add but make sure you dry fit a lot, including the windscreen.

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    I was very frustrated with the Italeri windscreen, it looks like a good idea in the box
(separate roof parts) but is a pain in the ass to build, and a very poor fit. I much preferred the Minicraft windscreen. Although Chris Miller did great research as usual, the K has gone through a few changes since the first Ks were delivered during the 90s. One thing I noticed in current photos (which are hard to find) is that the laser warning detectors have been moved from their original position on the doors (which are left off in warm weather for better pilot visibility) to just below the gunners and below the engine exhaust (they were split).

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     I cut them and moved them along with adding a mount for each. Another new feature to the Ks and MH-60Ls is the chaff dispensers, that have a variable angle rack, I scratch built these from plastic card.  
The tail IR plume detectors took some sanding and blending but I re-scribed the area afterwords.

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    I found that the Italeri exhaust pieces were much more accurate to the real thing than the mini-craft parts so I copied them in resin for use on the G also.  
The dog house area has two holes that need to be hollowed out (APU I think on the real thing) and had to scratch build a new wire cutter for my G. I also drilled out and added plastic tube to the exhaust port on the left hand side of the birds for the APUs and such. I added some wires to the wheel struts for the brake lines. I also had to scratch build the antenna array for the tail boom, I at first used plastic rod only to break it off several times during painting, I then rebuilt it using metal florist wire. It was then time for painting.

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    At first I was going to do an all black K after reading that they were being re-painted during upgrades. I even made up new custom decals that were reverse black to apply over green (David Agunst suggested that). But after seeing some pics of a very well worn helo drab bird I decided that would be very cool and a good chance to work on my subtle weathering in a different color than Grey. To accomplish this I started with the black areas and masked them off and painted everything with several coats of model master helo drab. I also painted the areas above the exhaust shroud a slightly lighter green since I noticed this area was faded from the heat.

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    At first I thought I would airbrush on different shades of the green, I tried this and it did not look right, too much contrast. I then came up with another idea, I sealed the base coat with future (need that for decals anyways) to protect it for my spot painting. After some experimenting I came upon a method of thinning the base color and mixing it with black and white to darken and lighten, and then applying this to the kit. I used Testors brush cleaner (worked better than thinner) and mixed the paint in a small cup and then applied with a brush, I used a brush so I could control the application and if I was not happy with the result I could just wipe it off. I found that because it was thinned it did not look clumpy like most brush work and I would wipe away a lot of it to give that subtle staining affect. I studied the photos I had in International Airpower Journal and tried to follow the same pattern of weathering, mostly on the tail boom and the engine
area. This gave me the subtle molted look I was going for, simulating sun fading, oil/dirt stains and rain stains very nicely. I am not sure if all of this will show up in pictures but in person it looks great, I was very pleased with the result. 

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   Decaling was done before the weathering process began and again using my photos I realized the "UNITED STATES ARMY" on the tail boom was very faded and missing in spots near the chaff dispensers. I applied the kit decals and then after sealing them I lightly airbrushed over them in spots till they barely showed through, it looks very close to my photos and looks cool. You have to remember that because these special ops helos go places that we don't acknowledge the national markings are probably allowed to fade so no one can read them. The other decals were also over sprayed on the tail and I left off the red danger decal since it is long gone from the real birds. I did try my reverse decals on the intake no steps (they are OD) and they look OK but peeled up in spots, oh well.  I of course sealed with Testors Flat coat.

  Putting the lower foot level windows in was very disappointing, even though I test fit them they had some gaps around them. Just like the windscreen/roof pieces I think these parts do fit well. I wish I had fared them in before I painted, everyone be fore warned!

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    I attached some final bits to the kit such as the antennas, wire cutters, landing light and miniguns and called it done. Note that while I taking the photos I broke off one of the probes above the gunner windows (air data sensor?) so please excuse this in the pics, I have since fixed it. Gotta hate those small breaky things. Even though it was very time consuming I
learned a lot and in the end was very pleased with it.  Maybe someday I'll get around to the MH-60L, MH-6, and MH-47, all very bad ass machines, but at least I have one of the 160th birds. Night Stalkers don't quit!

Everett

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Photos and text © by Everett McEwan