Short
history
In
1959, the first helicopter unit (Primo Gruppo Elicotteri) of the Italian Navy,
received the first 3 HSS-1 Seabat helicopters and some year after, others 11
HSS-1N ASW version, with modified undercarriage, sonar and able to the nocturnal
flight.
In
the autumn of 1964, an hurricane pulled down on airport of Catania
(Sicily), base of the First Group, destroyed 6 of the 14 Seabat, the remaining
helicopters will come employ in various roles; the antisubmarine warfare, search
and rescue and the crews training.
Towards
the end of the 70th, the survivors Seabat, considered obsolete, will be assigned
to training roles and to naval operations support until their definitive retire
from service in 1978.
The
helicopter that I have reproduced, was one of the last ones to being retired
from service, and is placed on the flight deck of the support ship “Bafile”
(former HSS Saint Gorge), used for the transport of the Italians marines of the
San Marco Battalion during a landing operations on the beach of the Sardinia in
the summer of the 71.
The
kit
To
built my HSS-1N Seabat I have used the Italeri kit in 72nd scale.
Moulded
in deep blue plastic, the kit have quite good detail, finely recessed panel
lines and reproduce a good copy of the original one.
The
box contains the pieces to realize the HSS-1 and the version with modified
landing gear legs undercarriage HSS-1N.
In
adding to the kit, I have bought a beautiful etched metal set from Part
(S72-023) that it supplies the main intake and cooling air grills and a lot of
others external details. Finally,
to realize the Italian Navy version, I have used two decals sheets from
Tauromodel (72-542 and 72-557 Italian helicopters).
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Construction
I
have been always fascinated from the carried helicopters showing the tail and
the blades of the rotor folded, therefore , the temptation has been too much
strong and after to have collected some books and photos about the Seabat, I
have started to work.
I
have begun to separate the tail pylon, in order to fold the two parts, I have
realized the two bulkheads with the structural reinforcement and have
reconstructed the part of fuselage that exceeded outside with a thin styrene
strip, I have replaced the folding joint mechanism with the new etched ones,
finally I have added the handlholds for the tail folding and some small tubes
and electric cables.
Using
some small parts of a clock, I have reproduced the joint gear of the tail rotor.
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I
have detailed the original cockpit adding some instrument panels,
push-buttons and switches.
An
other hard job has been the substitution of all the air intake grills with the
photoeched new one’s, especially for the big engine air inlet grill that I
have had to cut in more parts to compensate the remarkable curving of fuselage
nose.
Continuing
to detail the outside of the fuselage and following the photos to my
disposition, I’ve added some tubes, handholds, the fuel tank filler caps, the
aft-sliding cabin door and the doppler radar antenna.
I’ve
scratchbuilt the rescue hoist and its mounting frame, the triple pipe exhaust
system using different brass tubes.
The
landing gear legs from the kit appeared too much thick, so I have replaced,
scratchbuilting them with brass tubes of various diameter.
A large engagement has demanded
the folding mechanism of the blades of the main rotor, every blade was hinged on
the both side of its attachment fitting with the rotor’s sleeve and could be
folded along the fuselage only removing the connection hinge.
To realize the hinges and the
blade’s attachment fitting I have used some small pieces of brass tube glued
on a plate of styrene sheet, after I have fixed it both on the rotor’s and
blade’s sleeve, the final result appears much realistic and the system is free
to rotate like that real one.
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Painting,
weathering and Markings
The
helicopters of the Italian Navy at that time, were painted in a standard scheme;
overall Dark Sea Gray with red-orange nose and the red-orange and yellow tail
pylon.
The Seabat that I wanted to
reproduce (code 4-10), being near to the end of its service life, appeared heavy
weathered and unarmed with the torpedo launcher pylons removed.
I have painted the fuselage using
as color base the Gunze H-333 Extra Dark Sea Gray, the nose with a base
coat of Tamiya Gloss Red and with a over sprayed coat of Testors Red Day
Glo.
After to have sealed the model
with a coat of Gunze gloss clear varnish, I let it dry and I’ve filled
all the panel lines with black sepia oil color, the excess of color was wiped
off with a very lightly damped cloth.
The second step was to spray over
different coats of thinned Gunze H-333 Extra Dark Sea Gray, more lighter
in the center of every panel and darker on sides to reproduce the various
shades.
The decals where then applied,
using carefully the Gunze Mr. Mark Softer (the Tauro decals are very good
but also very thin).
Once the decals had set, the
model was sealed with a coat of mixed Gunze Clear and gloss clear varnish until
catching up a semi-gloss finish.
The final touch has been a light
drybrush with a mixture of grey and azure oil paint to exalt the raised details.
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Diorama
To
represent realistically the model, I have built one small part of the flight
deck of the support ship “Bafile”.
The
base of the diorama is made of plywood, bulkheads were constructed with styrene
sheet and scribed to simulate welding marks. The deck is made with a thinner,
1.5mm plywood sheet, again scribed to simulate the planking and to complete the
work, I have added some other small details like cleats, hooks and eyelets,
stolen from the box of the naval models detail parts of my dad.
Sebastiano
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Reference
Gli
Elicotteri della Marina – Rivista marittima Roma 1981
H-34
Choctaw in action – Squadron signal n.146
Westland
Wessex
– 4Plus Publication
Links
The
one of the best walkaround about the “Seabat” on the web:
http://www.b-domke.de/AviationImages/Seabat.html
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