1/48th HU-16E conversion

[Pete Fleischmann]

Hello all-

 

I've started a conversion of the Trumpeter Albatross to a long wing, tall tail USCG HU-16E. Without going into to much detail as to why; I've been looking forward to this build as a tribute to my Dad, who passed away 20 years ago this August.

 

The Trumpeter kit has some shape issues to deal with. The windscreen is too vertical, and the shape of the boat hull chine below the cockpit is too steep. For starters, I grabbed the Alley Cat conversion, Thinking this would solve  those issues,  but was disappointed to note that there was one obvious shape issue that they missed with their conversion- the shelf/bulge out below the sides of the windscreen. They did do a nice job fixing the angle of the windscreen and chine, but there was no way I could use the Alley Cat forward fuselage halves as there was no good way to incorporate the bulge into their casting..sooo, I cut away the chine sections of the Alley Cat conversion and inserted them into the Trumpeter fuselage. I was able to use the Alley Cat resin windscreen once I added the bulge to the Trumpeter fueselage. Problem solved!

 

I've got some other creative solutions to lengthen the wings and vertical tail; as well as incorporate the larger horizontal stabs- I'll hit that after the fuselage is fixed.

 

Here's what I'm going for:

 

 

 

The bulge-out below the sides of the windscreen was shaped with Apoxie Sculpt- much better 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the section of the Trumpeter kit to remove with the better profile of the Alley Cat resin fuselage also cut out, and ready to install

 

Everything gets blended in with JB Weld- my favorite filler. This stuff sands beautifully and scibes wonderfully with a razor saw.

 

More to follow!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 4, 2018 by Pete Fleischmann

[ScoobyDoo]

Nice tribute for your dad.

[Gazzas]

Nice!

[DugyB]

 My older brother was a Flight Engineer on the Goats, after they retired the HU-16s he went floppy wing with the H-3.  I missed out on the HU-16 by a couple of years, H-52s and H-65s for this man….. I’ll be following along here for the ride …..