Gunship Training at Fort Rucker

There are quite a few ‘72nd scale AH-1 Cobra kits available on the market including two from Hobby Boss.

For a helicopter themed campaign on Aeroscale, called Aerial Screw, I picked up the AH-1F kit by Hobby Boss. The first thing to note about this particular kit is that it isn’t an AH-1F at all but actually an AH-1E. You can check out my previous post to get an overview on the differences between Cobra variants but, sufficient to say, the exhaust scoop and the nose cannon are good giveaways.

Despite Hobby Boss mixing up their AH-1 kit boxes the kit is very well detailed with finely engraved panel lines, a nicely detailed cockpit and a few armament choices including two different style or rocket pod, 7-shot and 19-shot, as well as two 4-tube TOW missile launchers.

It’s a little difficult to see the detail in the cockpit from this picture due to it being overwhelmingly white but it is is there in both the front and side consoles. The panel behind the rear seat is textured with a pipe running along it, the seats feature cushion detail with seatbelts as well.

I painted the cockpit in Vallejo Basalt Grey to give it a darker look than usual, details were then picked out in various greens, yellows, reds, whites from the Revell and Vallejo range. The control stick handles were painted with Revell Tar Black.

When I was working on the cockpit I glued the front seat before painting it because there was plenty of room to work with. There is not a lot of space when the rear seat is fitted however so I decided to paint it separately; before painting the seat fit easily enough but after applying the paint to both the seat and the tub the fit became very awkward. I ended up having to force the seat in and damaged the paint in the process but it was easily repaired.

Hobby Boss do not include any pilots with the kit and as I wanted to add two I borrowed them from an Airfix kit; they’re the usual guy you get in most Airfix kits. I painted their uniforms in Revell paints; Light Olive for the uniform, Tar Black for what I suppose is the webbing on the torso and Gloss Black and White Black for the helmets. Vallejo Basic Skintone was used for the flesh and then the pilots, and the cockpit, was given a wash with Citadel Badab Black.

Now, after fitting the cockpit to one side of the fuselage there are a few other things that need to be fitted before you close up the fuselage halves. First you need to assemble the 30mm nose cannon; Hobby Boss have designed it so that the cannon with swivel from side to side but will also elevate which is a nice feature. On the downside the cannon barrels are not bored out but solid although anyone with experience could probably do it themselves.

The second installation is the nose sensor which is also designed to swivel from side to side and is nicely detailed with two lenses. The landing skids can pose a bit of a problem that may be fixed early on; they can be attached at any time during the build process as they slot into holes in the fuselage but they’re not very strong. I broke off one skid about three times during the entire build. It may be advisable to fit the skids before joining the fuselage halves and then add internal reinforcement to ensure they don’t break later on.

The fit of the fuselage halves leaves a lot to be desired as well, at least in my case. I was left with seams in the front of the cockpit on the nose and right along the underside; these were not too difficult to work with, just regular sanding. Worse still there was a seam along the very top of the helicopter where the rotor mast was to be installed, this area features a few ‘lumps & bumps’ that are probably aerials and it can be awkward sanding in between them. The worst seam of all though, and the worst I’ve experienced in a kit to date, was inside the exhaust scoop. It wasn’t so much a seam as it was a trench and incredibly awkward to deal with; in the end I applied several layers of filler to lessen the severity of it but it seemed that no matter how much I applied the problem never fully went away. If I was to implore Hobby Boss to fix anything about the kit this would be it, they could reprint the box while they’re at it.

I should also mention that some weight will be needed to prevent this from sitting on its tail. There isn’t a whole lot of room in the nose but on the underside of the helicopter, just behind the cockpit, is a panel that can be added anytime during the build. You can easily fit a couple of weights in this area and the weight will sit just over the landing skids; another good reason for reinforcing them.
 

This was the scheme I was trying to replicate throughout the build. The picture above shows an AH-1 based at the U.S Army Aviation Centre in Fort Rucker, Alabama. This is where the U.S Army trains all of their helicopter pilots as far as I know. The bright red panels mark the helicopter as a training unit. On the helicopters tail is a 4-digit code, on the fuselage behind the wing stub is the last two digits of that code plus a letter. By the way, I think the above helicopter is an AH-1S without the ‘sugar scoop’ exhaust fitted.

To recreate the Cobra from the reference picture I began by painstakingly painting in the red panels. Thankfully the panel lines on the kit appear to correspond to the panel lines on the actual helicopter and I was able to follow them. Still, keeping to a perfectly straight line with a brush can be a torturous affair sometimes especially when the overall colour was applied to the Cobra. I used Vallejo Flat Red for the panels and, I must say, it covers incredibly well.

The overall colour of the Cobra, as gathered from the reference picture, is olive drab and, apparently, plenty of dirt. I used a bottle of Vallejo Olive Drab for the overall colour and although it may appear very light in the picture above it is actually a lot darker. In fact after a clear and subsequent flat coat the olive drab came out a little to dark I think. In future for olive drab I’m going to try out Vallejo Brown Violet to get a lighter coat.

Flat Red was also used for several lights located on the front and back of the gunship while Vallejo Gunmetal Grey was used for the cannon and Gunmetal Blue for the sensor lenses. I painted both rotor blades separately before adding them to the Cobra; the blades were painted with Revell Tar Black and the metallic areas with Gunmetal Grey. Finally I used Vallejo Gloss Varnish to give the entire helicopter a clear coat.

When it came to applying the decals I was a little stuck. Most of the decals that I have are black or grey and I needed white. I needed two four-digit codes for the tail, one on each side, which proved difficult enough. Thankfully a friend was able to donate some white decals left over a great Corsair build and I was able to settle for two three-digit codes instead; I chose the number 530 as you can see.

With the small decals sorted I was still left needing some large ones; I required two numbers, the last two from the tail code, and a letter. On a bit of luck I hunted around the back of a closet and found the remains of a disastrous armour project with a decal sheet for the PLA complete with several large numbers and letters in bright white; perfect.

Hobby Boss provide some markings for both the U.S Army and the Israeli Army but no stencils are provided. I studied the few references pictures I have on the training unit and there are very little in the way of stencils so I didn’t bother borrowing any from my decal bank.

I followed the decals with another gloss coat and moved onto weathering. The reference photo shows that the Cobra appears pretty dirty and I wanted to replicate the same level of grime. I used the same concoction that I had used to weather my Indonesian Hawk, a mix of oil pastels, water and washing up liquid. I applied it over the entire model and after it had dried a while I took a damp cloth and began to wipe most it away hoping to leave it in the panel lines.

Honestly I think the effect has been overdone and I don’t like it terribly much. I’ll be replacing it with a Flory Models Wash and Tamiya Weathering Powders in future. With the weathering complete I only needed to add few more bits and pieces to finish the build starting with armaments.

As I mentioned before Hobby Boss provide four rocket pods, two 7-shot pods & two 19-unit pods, as well as two 4-tube TOW missile launchers. I wanted to mount the 7-shot pods and the TOW launchers on the wing stubs but early on in the build I fully assembled the TOW launchers and subsequently found them impossible to build.

I thought about mounting all four rocket pods but research indicated that the 19-shot pods would only be fitted with 12 to 14 rockets at most if fitted to the outer pylon. I’d already fitted the smaller rocket pods to the inside pylon and, not wanting to bore out several warheads, I decided to leave the larger ones off.

I would also like to mention that the fit of the rocket pods could be much better, some sanding and filling with be required with them. I painted the rocket tube with Revell Nato Olive and the warheads black; I don’t know if this is entirely accurate but I had a difficult time finding good pictures of the pods online.

The next step was to add the canopy and, as usual, it turned bad. When I had joined the fuselage earlier in the build I dry fitted the canopy and found no issue with it but I when I dry fitted after painting it wouldn’t fit at all. It turned into a struggle just to get it in place and lined up along both sides of the fuselage. When all was said and done I had to dilute some PVA glue to fill in the gaps, repair some of the paint and I was still left with dirty glass. You can see it is rather dirty in the glass above; terrible.

Finally I need to add the main rotor blade and the tail rotor. The main rotor on this kit is very fragile when glued into place and could also really do with reinforcement. I used some small drops of super glue to help strengthen the bond but it isn’t enough. The tail rotor is very solid though and nothing extra is needed to secure it.

There is the finished product, an AH-1E Cobra gunship finished as a training unit at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Hobby Boss produce a nice kit despite some deficiencies and some mislabelling. I’m fairly happy with the finish of the kit although if I was to build it again I would take the build much slower; I ended up rushing this kit to finish it in time for a competition and also so I could focus more on the Hawk from my previous postings.

Still, it is not bad for my first helicopter and my first Cobra Gunship. 

AH-1 HueyCobra: The First Dedicated Gunship

The AH-1 HueyCobra came into existence due to a United States Army need for a dedicated helicopter gunship for use during the Vietnam War. Throughout the war Army aviation had been using the UH-1 Iroquois, popularly known as the Huey, as a platform for conversion to gunship.

The Huey had proven itself as an effective platform for a gunship; the combination of two heavily armed door gunners alongside rocket pods and miniguns on stub racks made for a deadly battlefield support unit. At its heart; however, the Huey was always a transport chopper and the fleet suffered increased fatigue and weight issues, especially the earlier models.

To give an example a UH-1B gunship, fully loaded, would often have issues taking off vertically. The increased weight coupled with the muggy air common to the wetter regions of Vietnam necessitated a running take-off; the Huey would literally have to fly down the runway at speed, its skids skimming the concrete below, in order to gain enough lift to get airborne.

Bell, the manufacturer of the Huey, had made an early attempt at a dedicated helicopter gunship and was awarded a ‘proof of concept’ contract in 1962. The helicopter, the Model 207, was called the Sioux Scout and impressed the U.S Army but was ultimately disregarded being far too underpowered and fragile for intense combat. The failure of the Scout lead to the U.S Army launching a competition for a new gunship in which Bell was not invited to participate. Instead Bell launched a new in-house development of the Model 209 which married parts from the UH-1C with elements of the Sioux Scout.

By 1965 the Vietnam War was intensifying and the need for a new gunship was becoming all the more apparent. The U.S Army competition was set to end in ‘65 but had failed to produce a result. Subsequently the Army reached out to several contractors hoping for a quick solution and within 8 months Bell had produced a fully working prototype of the Model 209. In ‘66 Bell won a production contract and, hoping to capitalise on the popularity of the Huey, named the Model 209 the HueyCobra. The U.S Army gave the gunship a new designation, AH-1 with the ‘A’ standing for Attack, the ‘U’ in UH-1 stands for Utility by the way.

Because of the parts commonality between the UH-1 Huey and the AH-1 HueyCobra the Army considered the new Cobra gunships an evolution of the Huey line. Thus the first production model of the Cobra was designated in full the AH-1G following after the UH-1F. The Cobra was quite impressive; it was fast, agile and very narrow making it harder to hit head on, tandem seating in a large glass canopy gave excellent views for both the pilot and the gunner.

The cornerstone of the AH-1 was, of course, its armament. Mounted in a nose turret the Cobra held a 7.62mm (0.3”) Gatling gun that was capable of chewing through enemy fortifications and devastating troops; the Gatling gun was soon joined by a 40mm grenade launcher mounted alongside it in the nose. The Cobra also featured wing stubs for carrying a variety of rocket pods and warheads for even more firepower. After trails and upgrading the AH-1Q Cobra would also begin carrying TOW missile launchers for anti-armour roles.

During the Vietnam War over 1,000 Cobras were produced and served across Vietnam fulfilling a variety of mission roles including ground support and escorting of other helicopters. The U.S Marine Corps became very interested in the AH-1 and in 1968 placed an order for a twin-engine variant which would become the Super Cobra; today the modern equivalent of the Super Cobra is still in service with the USMC.

The AH-1 Cobra gunship would become the mainstay gunship of U.S Army aviation for the next 3 decades. The helicopter would see service during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury, and the 1989 invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause. But the Cobra fleet began to wind down operations during the 1990’s as it was phased out in favour of the AH-64 Apache.

During Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield (1990-1991) the U.S Army AH-1 fleet was used primarily in a scouting role as the Apache was given the bulk of offensive missions. Still, the AH-1 fleet, both Army and USMC, destroyed hundreds of Iraqi vehicles as they roved the desert skies. The Cobra fleet was called on again during 1993 in Operation Restore Hope, Somalia and again during the 1994 invasion of Haiti. In 1999 the U.S Army placed their AH-1 fleet into reserve and fully retired them in 2001. Many were offered to NATO partners, Israel while some were stripped off weaponry and converted for use by the USDA Forestry Service.

The AH-1 also found itself a successful export market; the single engine variant was exported to Bahrain, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Turkey. Of all of those only Spain has retired their AH-1 fleet.

Now, I think it is worth going into a little detail about the various upgrades the Cobra has undergone during its lifespan. The U.S Army were anything but consistent with their designations as you’ll see and once I get around to posting my Cobra build you’ll also see why this is necessary.

• AH-1G (Early): The first Cobra model featured a single 7.62mm Gatling gun in the turret and a tail rotor on the port side of the tail.
• AH-1G (Late): The late ‘Golf’ model had an upgraded armament in the form of a 40mm grenade launcher mounted alongside the Gatling gun in the turret. The tail rotor was switched to the starboard side and the exhaust nozzle was replaced with a scoop, sometimes referred to as a sugar-scoop or toilet bowel.
• AH-1Q: The ‘Quebec’ model featured various upgrades allowing it to use TOW missile launchers, part of the upgrade package included a new stabilised sight fitted to the nose.
• AH-1S: The ‘Quebec’ model proved to be underpowered and thus required further upgrades resulting in the ‘Sierra’ model. The ‘Sierra’ was fitted with a new powerful engine, a tail mounted RWR and extra scoops over the intakes.
• AH-1P: The ‘Papa’ model resulted in some dynamic changes to the Cobra, most importantly a new canopy; the new flat-plate canopy was designed to reduce the shine and glint from the helicopter. The avionics and flight systems were upgraded and over half of the ‘Papa’ models were fitted with new rotor blades.
• AH-1E: The ‘Echo’ designation was applied to the AH-1S\AH-1P’s that underwent the ‘Enhanced Cobra Armament System’ (ECAS) upgrade package. The upgrade package resulted in the nose turret armament being replaced with a three barrel 20mm cannon. Wire cutters were also fitted above and below the cockpit.
• AH-1F: The ‘Foxtrot’ model is the definitive single engine Cobra gunship. The AH-1F was fitted with a new HUD, a redesigned cylindrical exhaust with a better IR suppressor, a new IR Jammer, a laser warner system and an air data sensor. The ‘Foxtrot’ model was also the most widely exported.

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As an aside; I’m wondering what people think about the non-build, informative posts? Are they helpful, informative or interesting? Let me know through the comments section and thank you.