Blue Thunder

[m1ks]

Hi all, it's been a good while, I sort of lost my modelling mojo and while i'm not convinced the urge is well and truly back I have been finishing a couple of incomplete models this past couple of days, possibly spurred on by my painting the tired looking lid of my laptop.

Remember the 80's black pointy vehicle obsession, well heres something angular and primarily blue instead!!

Anyone remember Blue Thunder? It was a movie, (Later had a TV spinoff with Dana Carvey as JAFO, y'know Garth from Waynes World, ), with Roy Scheider as a police heli pilot who was an ex vietnam vet, blah blah, you've never heard that one before etc.

However, I liked it, formulaic as it was I thought the heli was cool, it was based on a Gazelle and quite heavily modified.

This is a KiTech 1/32 scale kit

The quality is precisely what you pay for in these kits, (they're cheap!)

There was a gallon and a half of flash, some serious shonky fit issues and it's a bit rough round the edges, however, i think it pulled together nicely and the end result isn't bad, certainly not Tamiya standard but not bad.

Hope you like it. (pics aren't great unfortunately, they're just quick snaps taken with my camera phone a little while ago)

 

[Vaughan]

Hi there very nice, clean build.

Vaughan

 

[Andy2035]

Hi Vaughan,

I too remember Blue Thunder, great film, nearly cried at the end though with the train incident...:emo2:

Top model of it though, top marks from me...:score:

Andy...

 

[andyrobs]

Cool build mate, I vaguely remember the film, more so the TV show. I prefered airwolf meself tho!!!!!

Cheers, Andrew

 

[M.D.S]

Very nice Model indeed and one I do remember well. If you fancy a real challenge, how about this one up on ebay for R/C - At 5ft long it's a big model and ripe for a lot of scale detail.

Blue Thumder Scale Helicopter Fuselage for Radio Control | eBay

Mark

 

[MORIARTY1177]

Ah I remember it well, and although I too loved that movie Airwolf was the chopper for me. Cracking build Vaughn, lovely job. I hope your mojo makes a full recovery, we all loose it from time to time.

Regards

Chris

 

[treyzx10r]

Great looking build Mike ,remember this well geuss I'm dating myself. I always cracked up when they put it in 'whisper' mode,I mean why would'nt you just leave it there right lol?

 

[tecdes]

Precise & nice Mike. Nice detailing on the rotor arms centre. And that motor & exaust very impressive.

Thought the photos were good as well especially as they were taken with a phone camera.

Laurie

 

[batcode]

i remember it as well , was made outr of a gazile helicopter the main bluethunder obv actualy flew and is still around today somewhere

 

[m1ks]

Thanks guys, while since I did this one now.

The genuine article now sits sadly on a back lot of (universal?) or whichever studio owns the whole thing, it was laughed at by those who know heli's as apparently the Gazelle was considered underpowered even with it's stock bubble canopy so the idea of being fitted with 1/4" thick armour plate and that huge cannon didn't convince.

But then, my take is, it's a movie, you suspend disbelief, I've never seen a giant angry green mutated human who had an unfortunate accident with some gamma rad but still enjoyed the Avengers etc

Airwolf likewise is a modification of a 'Luxury civilian' heli, and certainly not built for carrying chain guns and self loading underslung rocket pods, but it's still very cool. I always thought BT was underrated, (not the telephony service, they're largely overrated), but Airwolf looked sleeker and cooler, now if ever a movie spinoff/reboot was in order then Airwolf certainly is!

Just picked up an Airfix 48th scale Apache for the stunning price of £2.50 today at a charity sale event, need to crack on with the others before I even think about starting that though, but wouldn't mind another Heli build, BT was the first and so far only, hmmmm, Maybe that Airwolf kit thats sitting there,

 

[Adrian "Marvel" Reynolds]

Absolutly love this build, brings back memories of Sat nite TV, great job.

Adrian