I didn't know if I should put this under Land or Air.
We used to have a great chain of drug stores called Sav-On. One of our local Sav-Ons had a surprisingly well stocked model section; it was clear that the buyer was either a modeler or had an interest in models, because they carried a lot more than just the generic car kits. Sav-On is long gone now (taken over by CVS) and so is the model section.
I bought the Glencoe Airjeep at Sav-On in the late 90's and it has languished in its box since then.
During a Sprue Bros sale, I got the Trumpeter CH-47 Chinook Crew in Vietnam (
http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/trp00417.htm) at a discount. The kit comes with a good rendition of the cockpit.
I noticed that the cockpit floor fit well within the Airjeep fuselage, so a plan was hatched. What if the Airjeep had not only been accepted into service, but had been upgraded to modern standards, much as the HMMWV has been upgraded?
Here's the Glencoe box:
It's an ancient kit. They list it as 1/35, but it's probably some other random scale between 1/32 and 1/40.
This was a long build and unfortunately I didn't take many pictures during the build. Many of the parts were scratch built and many came from stuff Jeffry Fontaine has sent me.
I chopped out the cockpit section and added an equally chopped up CH-47 cockpit floor, boxed in with some textured styrene. I decided that a modernized Airjeep would use small turbine engines (as a later variant did) so I added two intakes made from fake fingernails and sealed up the gaps with plastic card and CA+talc putty. The engines exhaust into the rear prop's plenum. Here's the basic layout:
The lawn chair in the middle is from the Quad .50 Jeff sent me a couple of years ago, and it was left over from my HMMWV with Quad .50 build (
http://beyondthesprues.com/Forum/index.php?topic=240.0). The plates on the side are styrene sheet and the fuel filters are from a Kotobukiya parts set. I also replaced the half rod that represented the prop drive shafts with a full styrene rod.
The Trumpeter figures in the CH-47 kit are awful (many of their figure kits are crap). The legs seem to be in 1/32, the torsos in 1/35 and the heads are misshapen lumps. One of the pilots looked like Voldemort! I did some extensive plastic surgery to shorten the legs and reposition the arms. Jeff sent me a huge collection of camo decals for 1/35 figures, so I decided to try them out on the pilots. I was well aware of the difficulties with camo decals, so I wasn't surprised at the challenges. I cut the decals into small strips and segments and soaked them in water. They were very stiff on the figures, but I softened them with Solvaset. It took enough Solvaset to dissolve almost any other decal before these guys softened, but the results are OK. I sealed the decals with Vallejo satin.
Here's Goober and Gomer, as Jeff called them:
The visors are goggles from Trumpeter's horrible PMC set. The boots aren't painted because they're not visible under the instrument panel.
Side view of the AV-8R:
The windscreen is from my tracked Humvee, which met a sad end when it fell from my work table. The minigun is from my Urban Leo, repainted. The front tires are from the Quad .50 kit, which fit nicely into the Airjeep's original landing gear. I also made extensive use of the leftover bits from the AFV Club M151 Protector kit (mostly Stryker parts).
I didn't like the puny props in the original kit. I found a good picture online of a sprue with the scimitar blades from a 1/48 E-2C Hawkeye. I scanned them in and scaled them to fit the Airjeep. I mirrored the blades, printed them out (on paper) and glued them around a styrene rod, making sure I gave them an airfoil shape. I then soaked the paper in CA.
The AFV Club leftover bits has several short cylinder with notches cut into one edge. I cut and combined the cylinders until I had two with 8 spaced notches around the rim. I used another cylindrical piece in the center, added the blades (making sure I made a counter rotating pair of props) and capped them off with another curved bit from a Kotobukiya parts set, which fit perfectly. I then coated everything with AK Interactive flat black acrylic primer.
I was going to use the original CH-47's instrument panel, but I had an Eduard's color PE set for a 1/35 MH-60, so I used that instead, cutting it to shape and adding hoods for the IPs:
The video display is scratch built from styrene. The image is from an actual display from a Stryker. The crew harnesses are Tamiya tape, using PE buckles provided by Jeff. The cylinder behind the cockpit is another AFV Club leftover. Here it represents a ballistic parachute, in case of emergencies. The tarp is just rolled up and painted paper. there's a row of tiny snap-ons visible on top of the windshield - they're from a Meng nuts and bolts set (I used several of the bolts on the side panels as well).
Crew weapons are on the sidewalls. One is from the AFV Club, the other is from the Trumpeter PMC set.
I removed the jump seat in the middle; a person sitting there would have had their head above the windshield and they would have been pretty cramped as well as within the crew's work space.
The mini-gun needs to be aimed, and since this is a reconnaissance vehicle, it needs some optics. So I scratchbuilt a turret. Surprisingly, none of the parts were from AFV:
The anti-reflection coating is from Tamiya. If you stick the film over a black painted surface, you get a nice gold/brown reflection. Over a white surface, you get a blue reflection (you can just barely see the imager to the lower left of the minigun).
I now have to paint the base. This is a surprisingly large vehicle, easily dwarfing a HMMWV and about the same size as the GAZ-66.
Thanks to Jeff for supplying many of the parts!
