1/35 Decals for MH-60S Search and Rescue & HSC-2 Retro Scheme

ziggyfoos · November 21, 2023

New 1/35 sheet 35-006 coming for Search & Rescue (SAR) MH-60S helos from Naval Air Stations Key West, Whidbey Island, Lemoore, Fallon (2 options), Pax River (2 options), and China Lake (Dust Devils). Also included is an extra scheme for the HSC-2 retro Korean War scheme. These are now at Cartograf for printing and looking at an early 2024 release.

Some background blurbs: Back in 2021 when my initial low-viz USN H-60 decal sheets were planned, I had intended to include a couple SARs but since they shared so little to the standard low-viz schemes I had removed them from consideration to focus only on the fleet schemes and with so many of the latter available to choose from. After finally finishing the low viz sheets (35-002, -003, -004) last year, I started work on a follow up sheet dedicated to SAR schemes but ended up putting it on a pause especially since Kitty Hawk fizzled away right around then. Now that Kitty Hawk kits are coming back through Zimi Model, and plus the Academy MH-60S also still available, I decided to get around to finishing this SAR sheet.

The Kitty Hawk MH-60S kit has a somewhat similar Naval Aviation Centennial scheme for west coast's HSC-3 but I always thought the east coast's HSC-2 scheme was better looking - plus the penguin artwork. Since most of the printed colors were already needed for the SARs, I wanted to include that HSC-2 scheme too, which is why all except that one on this release are SARs. Although by pure coincidence it's related to the SARs, that same H-60 was later transferred to Key West as a SAR and was already included in the sheet in the KW SAR form, and at KW it still retained some of the unique colors carried over from the Centennial scheme. Anyway, the pics....