Minihobby Mil Mi24 Hind F in 1/48 scale

[yak face]

Slowly getting there with the painting , but still a bit of tidying up to do . Got the sighting rigs finished ready to go on and finished the main instrument panels . Once all this is done I can get the seats and cyclic sticks/ collective levers in and then maybe think about getting the fuselage together

 

[papa 695]

Fantastic work on the cockpit Tony

 

[yak face]

After a lot of touching up and repainting I’m happy enough with the pit. The instrument panels , control sticks and seats have now been fitted and also the quilted padding behind the WSOs seat, which was made from wine foil ,scored with a ballpoint. The pit and the troop compartment were bit sandwiched between the fuselage halves along with the engines and rotor base.

 

[scottie3158]

All looking very nice.

 

[Steven000]

Very nice interior!
Steven

 

[yak face]

Well as colin said a while back its reached that stage where it comes together all of a sudden now that the cockpit is done . Theres still a bit more to do before the canopy can start to be tackled ( pilots HUD ) and theres also the bits that fasten to the inside of the canopy ( cooling fans in both pits and sighting mechanism in WSOs cockpit)
Ive got the fuselage all together , seams sorted ,and got the stub wings fitted and setting ( note the latest soviet weaponry ! ) The engine covers were a bit of a pain but with some persuasion and a good smear of acrylic putty look fine now .The kit was missing the prominent searchlight on the port side of the nose so this was scratched from some styrene tube and will be having a silver sequin fitted later to represent the lens .

 

[scottie3158]

Tony,
All looking very nice.

 

[yak face]

Been doing a bit more to the pilots cockpit . The HUD has been made from plastic card and ive also made the gunsight camera ( the thing at the side of the HUD that looks like a grey saucepan on a lot of russian aircraft ) . The other thing that needs to be fitted before the rear section of canopy can go on is the cooling fan , which fastens on the inside of the windscreen frame . Thankfully the kit supplies these , i didnt fancy trying to scratch two of these !

 

[scottie3158]

Lovely work mate

 

[papa 695]

Fantastic work Tony, the pit is looking the bees knees. Peg rockets are new to me though.

 

[Archetype]

That looks great! It's an interesting cockpit panel colour choice, I wonder what the reasoning is for that? Perhaps it's arbitrary and just what they had laying around!

 

[john i am]

Looking great Tony you've put a lot of hard work into this and it really shows in the presentation. Very much looking forward to the camo paint scheme. Cheers John

 

[yak face]

Thanks guys ,its at a fiddly stage but its slowly moving forward . Got the HUD finished with holographic confetti disc for the projector and clear acetate ( guess what , yes confetti again!) for the screen. The gunsight camera has been fitted and the fan and a grab handle fitted on the inside of the canopy. The canopy has been fitted with Mig ultra glue and is now drying , held in place with a bit of tape.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Tony
Cracking job on that cockpit. Very neat detail painting. Coming together now. The fuselage fit looks pretty good.
Jim

 

[BigGreg]

Very niiiice...l always loved that helicopter

 

[Deleted member 7181]

Those extra details really look the part now they're painted up.

 

[yak face]

This has now got to the bit of the build I was dreading. Those of you with good memories will remember the trials of the broken canopy and subsequent making of a repair piece. Well now this piece is ready to be fitted . First off i taped the windscreen to the ftont cockpit door and trial fitted this to the rear section, marking the screen placement with a pencil. The two pieces were then separated and the screen superglued in place ( after masking outside and in to try and prevent fogging) The side piece that i crash moulded was then further fettled and again masked and stuck on .I stuck a piece of plastic strip on the top edge to form the frame . This piece will need quite a bit of filling and blending but it doesn't look too bad so far .

 

[yak face]

Now filled and drying , it doesn’t look pretty but once it’s sanded it should look better . I’ve been making the WSOs optical sighting rig from bits out of the spares box ( a bit of undercarriage leg I think ) , plastic card , wire and some punched discs of my trusty holographic confetti . This will fasten on the right hand side of the inside of the screen pillar as will the cooling fan , I will be fitting these through the open cockpit door after I’ve finished sanding . They look a bit rough but don’t forget they’re on mega zoom ,the actual thing is about as big as a grain of rice!

 

[papa 695]

Your doing a great job on this Tony. keep the good work going. I hope the fix on the canopy works well.

 

[yak face]

Your doing a great job on this Tony. keep the good work going. I hope the fix on the canopy works well.

Cheers Ian , it doesnt Look too bad now ive got a bit of black primer on it . This is a kit of opposites , sometimes the detail is very nicely done and sometimes it’s ridiculously simplified / inaccurate or totally missing . A couple of things I’ve been looking at are the stores pylons and the gsh 30 -2 cannon . The cannon is a very simplified and poor fitting part so having looked at pictures of the real thing decided it needed a new cover making. The cover has several rows of cooling louvres so I decided to make it from wine foil and used an old thread tap to press the louvres into it . This will be fitted over the top of the kit part which has had the back end shortened as the cannon doesn’t come right to the ends on the real thing.
The pylons are missing the sway braces , very noticeable on the hind so I had to think of a way to make these. After studying loads of pics it seems that the rocket pods only have sway braces fitted at the back end , so bonus for me , I’ve only got to make four not eight! The braces were made from thin aluminium , drilled to go over the pylons locating peg and drilled each end for the dressmakers pins ,which were cut off to size and fitted in the ends. They’re a bit rough at the mo , I think I need to tidy up the ends of the pins but they’re better than nothing, cheers tony