WAH-66 Crossbow Comanche

[PR19_Kit]

When the US Army decided to cancel the RAH-66 Comanche, the British Army expressed an interest in the light, stealth helicopter concept and via the British MoD and the US DoD the production rights were purchased and Westland were contracted to build to 50+ aircraft for the UK armed forces.

Various changes were made to the Westland built WAH-66 Comanches, but the basic concept remained the same. A small, stealthy, fast, manoeuvrable and quiet helicopter, designed to observe enemy targets while remaining undetected, and either to mark the targets for the fully armed Apaches that would be nearby, or to engage the targets itself with a limited armoury carried aboard the Comanche.

Two major changes to the US built Comanches were the British designed BERP rotor and the mast mounted Crossbow radar. The latter, having been developed by Marconi in the mid-90s, was a frequency agile Z-band radar that could be electronically steered and was housed in a faceted, low radar detectable housing mounted above the main rotor.

==============================

Kit is the somewhat maligned  Italeri RAH-66 Comanche with some add-ons, and painted in a  suitably British green scheme, so long as I can find some suitable paint in time, that is....

[Dizzyfugu]

...and what about extended rotor blades? 

[PR19_Kit]

...and what about extended rotor blades? 

The BERP rotors have a larger diameter than the standard ones anyway. 

[Weaver]

Oh nice one!

DON'T extend the pylons.
DON'T paint it PRU Blue.

Repeat 100 times....

[PR19_Kit]

Hehehe, definitely not!

It won't have the pylons mounted as they diminish the stealthiness, or so it says somewhere on the Net anyway.

I started work on this right after the deadline last night as it needed some 'engineering' sorted so that the Crossbow radar could be mounted and still have the rotor turn. Italeri's rotor design had the usual 'pin in a hole' arrangement but I needed a shaft running right up through the rotor with the radar pod mounted on top.

So I've cut out a thwartships panel that rests on the inside bits of the landing gear boxes and superglued a length of Albion Alloys aluminium (other spellings are lamentably available...) tubing up through the rotor plylon. Then I drilled out the rotor head itself, and the little add-on bits too an checked that it all rotated as planned.

I'd printed out a BERP rotor tip to the correct size beforehand so I cut out a trial shape and glued it in place one one blade before tidying up at around 1.30 am. 

This morning I've PSR'd the BERP tip and it doesn't look too bad, but I may change the shape a bit, there's something not quite right about it.



The 'Engineering' bit. The short collar around the tubing is part of the exhaust duct from a V-1 bomb.....




Comparison between the two fuselage halves now I've modified one of them




The assembled rotor, complete with one BERP tip

It just occurred to me that  the plastic is olive drab, it looks black at midnight.....

[zenrat]

At midnight many things look black until first light reveals their true nature.

[PR19_Kit]

At midnight many things look black until first light reveals their true nature.

Hehehe, that sounds like the voice of experience Fred.............. 

[PR19_Kit]

Oops! 

I found what was wrong with the BERP tip on the rotor, I've glued it on the wrong way round!!! Dummy!

[kitnut617]

This morning I've PSR'd the BERP tip and it doesn't look too bad, but I may change the shape a bit, there's something not quite right about it.

Does this help Kit

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, I've got it now, so the trial tip will have to come off and the others glued on the right way round.

And it seems the shade I should use for the main colour is FS34092, which is Xtracolor 114 or Humbrol 149. Out of well over FIFTY different greens I have in my paint store, I don't have either of them. 

Close will have to count I'm afraid, although there's an off-chance my LHS might have the Humbrol one.

[PR19_Kit]

It turns out the kit already IS a Whiff.... 

On the real thing the tail rotor/fan sits at a steep angle to port, and the fin is mounted vertically on top of it. But the kit has the fin tilted right over in the opposite direction!

Having said that Boeing/Sikorsky changed the two Comanches built a lot during their development and maybe Italeri found a pic of them that I haven't. Mine's going to have a vertical fin, and a horizontal tailplane together with the two tip fins that were added late on in the tests.

[DogfighterZen]

This is interesting!
I've always looked at this chopper as a modernized Blue Thunder... Imagine it with skids... i know it would make it less practical, more observable and slower than with the retractable wheel gear but i really like choppers with the skids.

[kitnut617]

On the real thing the tail rotor/fan sits at a steep angle to port, and the fin is mounted vertically on top of it. But the kit has the fin tilted right over in the opposite direction!

Well I found this on the internet but this appears to be the same photo, only one has been reversed. I wonder if Italeri picked the wrong one because most photos show it as leaning to port

[PR19_Kit]

Yeah, I have those two as well.

It seems the bottom one is correct as every other pic has the same tail rotor orientation, so the top one must be a reverse print.

I spent much of today doing fiddly little parts of the build, assembling and painting the cockpit,  building up the weapons pylons, , the tail rotor assembly, the gun and the sensor turret, and cutting out five BERP rotor tips. 

I also cut the fin off and attached the tailplane, and then made the two extra 'finlets' as well.

Progress pics of today's work.



Italeri got the rotor tilt correct, they just tilted the fin way over to starboard, and it should be vertical as far as I can see.

[Rick Lowe]

Oops! 

I found what was wrong with the BERP tip on the rotor, I've glued it on the wrong way round!!! Dummy!

The hazards of doing stuff into the wee smalls... I've had a few horror stories/ moments myself...