Howdy guys and gals,
Albatrosses were used by the U.S. Air Force, primarily by the
Air Rescue Service. The USAF utilized the SA-16 extensively in Korea, where it gained a reputation as a rugged and seaworthy craft. Later, the HU-16B (long-wing variant) Albatross was used by the U.S. Air Force's Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service in the Vietnam conflict. The HU-16D Albatross was used for
United States Navy Search And Rescue and "skunk runs" on
Guam during the
Vietnam War at
NAS Agana. Goodwill flights were also common to the surrounding
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in the early
1970s. Open water landing and takeoff training using
JATO was conducted frequently at
Apra Harbor,
Guam. The aircraft was also operated by the
United States Coast Guard for many years.
Now I mentioned yesterday that I would probably build this model or the XF2Y-1 SEA DART....well the Albatross won out. I have been buying old models, some over 50 yrs old, lately on ebay. Originally it was for the purposes of reselling them later, but, there are a few that caught my eye and I just had to build. The Albatross was one of them.
As you all know by now, I have been having some neck trouble so this build, although easy, took me abit longer than my usual 2-3 hrs. And since I was not using the markings from the kit, I had to make my own, so that added some time to the build too.
Anyway, I finished after dark here...about 6:30 p.m. and so I took the model out on my pick up trucks hood once again (like I did with the X-24A model) and using my 2,000,000 candlelight spotlight, I took a couple of pictures. The last two photos are of the aircraft that inspired my building of this model.
Anyway, have a good day and a very happy new year all Greg aka GW 
Hu-16 "albatross" U.s.c.g. 
Linear Mode
