MH-60A Black Hawk Super 62, Battle of Mogadishu, 3OCT1993
Hello iModeler! Here is my completed build of Kitty Hawk's MH-60L Black Hawk, back dated to a MH-60A. Modifications include Werner's Wings correction and back date sets, Werner's Wings decals, and extra bits and pieces to represent cables, brake lines, etc.
That is a great-looking Blackhawk, but more amazing was the photography! Using depth of field to blur out the background was fantastic. Some of those images makes me think I'm looking at a 1:1 bird! (attests to the modeling skill also). Beautiful!
Thanks Greg! I am still trying to teach myself some photography but I think some of it is starting to stick!
Wow! Fantastic build, Ramon. The superb finish, weathering and detail work add up to the best version of this historic subject I have seen built. I agree with Greg that the photography would completely fool you into thinking you are looking at the real thing. Not just the depth of field effect, of course, but the model itself. Excellent work. The only thing I would like is some shots of the in-progress work. Thanks for posting.
BTW, for anyone who has not read Mark Bowden's book on the events of the Battle of Mogadishu in Black Hawk Down. I heartily recommend it. One of the best and most moving books on the experience of modern warfare you could ever read, IMHO. The movie Black hawk Down doesn't quite capture the human element, although the technology is stunningly represented in true Ridley Scott style.
thanks Colin! I also agree about the book too. I was handed a copy of it before it was actually in book form when I was deployed to Bosnia. I started reading it as I was going to sleep to rest for the next day's early mission time. By 3am I was finished reading it all and found it difficult to get to sleep right away. A literal page turner!
Amazing build, Ramon! Obviously, a ton of detailing quality worknis spent to it. Looks like 1:1 for sure!
Congratulations on the pic taking!
Thanks for the kind words Spiros!
Speechless, Ramon @anvil6
This is a superb build, and on those outdoor pictures it even looks like to be a real helicopter.
cheers dude!
Wow Ramon! So realistic. The photography and depth of field, as Greg commented above, is indeed... "fantastic"!
thank you Eric!
Congratulations! Really marvellous build, I also plan to build this once, how did the fit go? Really well done, good to see a chopper here!
TL;DR - you will have to wrestle with it but it can look very cool when you are done, depending on how much time and effort you want to put into it.
First of all I want to disclose upfront that I was on the team of subject matter experts that helped try to guide Kitty Hawk in the right direction as far as accuracy of the tooling for their H-60 series of kits. I didnt get to comment on any interior parts but for the most part the exterior comments I made were implemented.
Secondly, although far from a perfect kit this and the other H-60 kits by KH are by far the best scale models of these aircraft in any scale. Nothing else even comes close!
Having said all that, if you have built a KH kit then you have an idea what you are in for. There are a few mistakes and ambiguities in the instructions, missing or misaligned assembly aids (slot and tab situations) and more than once will you look at the parts, scratch your head and mutter "curse you kitty hawk" under your breath as you contemplate how you will overcome some of their engineering decisions.
The rest of your building experience will depend on how familiar you are with the subject matter and how much you strive for historical accuracy. As it comes in the box, the kit builds as a more contemporary MH-60L and if you follow the instructions (regardless of proofreading errors) you will end up with a Black Hawk that is a mish-mash of Black Hawks with parts from army and air force hawks from different time periods, none of which are appropriate for the box art and decals included in the kit.
Disclosure number 2: I also worked with Werner's Wings to build a few different back date and correction sets, including both 7 and 14 bolt main landing gear rims, a correct H-bar to hang the crew chief seats from, a back-dated cambered fairing on the tail pylon and a stabilator for regular UH-60A/Ls.
(If you are still reading then thanks for bearing with me, I know I can be long winded but I am getting to the end I swear!)
In summary, this is the best Black Hawk kit in any scale. What Kitty Hawk does well, they do really well. Where they mess up, its obnoxious because if they had ANY QC system in place then a lot of their errors could have easily been caught and corrected before the production run. Instead, its left up to the builder to QC and correct their errors if you manage to catch them before its too late. If you dont care about accuracy then just look ahead, take your time and test fit everything before you commit to assembly. If historical accuracy is something you are after, gather your references (this also goes for color callouts as there are none in the instructions), ask your SMEs and take the instructions with a grain of salt. Its not a shake and bake kit but it is buildable and if you see it through to the end you will be rewarded with a Black Hawk model you can really be proud of.
Awesome work.
Thanks Charles!
Truly realistic, amongst the best I’ve seen!
Thank you Pedro, that is very kind of you to say!
Nice looking Blackhawk, Ramon (@anvil6). I was stationed in Mogadishu with the Air Force for several months during this period, and I remember seeing these all the time. Your model looks exactly like I remember. Well done.
Thanks George!
Ditto to the above, I can only parrot all the good adjectives. Something to point out in showing a well done build is the photography, using forced perspective and creating a environment that is relative to the build. Cropping the photo and blurring the back round to the model forces the viewer to see all the details which adds interest to the viewer who is into helicopters models.
Great build and photography and communicating the idea of MH-60A's character Ramon.
Two thumbs up.
Thanks Stephen but I must confess, this formula I have been using to take these pics is a very happy accident. The blurry background is originally because I dint know what fStop is, and when I figured it out, the backgrounds were waaay out of scale so back to blurry backgrounds I went. Thank you for the compliment just the same!
That is one classy build.
Thank you!
An impressive build, looks great!
Thanks Robert!
Reading that you had helped with research on this subject for KH makes a lot of sense, considering how it looks like [to my untrained eye] that you left no detail unturned. Seriously, the DoF photography helps immensely to help immerse in the subject, be every single thing just looks very 1:1 even under scrutiny. Thanks for sharing, this is an excellent display, and a medal winner if you ask me!
Thank you Andrew!
Beautiful Blackhawk Ramon, it captures that Sikorsky character in every way. I snatched a KH HH-60H kit when I first heard they were going to stop operating. I am glad for your summary on building any KH kit. And yes i do have one under my belt, and it was a wrestling match till the end. And your right you can make all the variants in what is in the box. Being familiar with the type and looking at your MH-60A as you backdated it. I am doing a ton of research in backdating my Rescue Hawk to an early "H" as we flew them in Desert Storm. Lot of the basic parts are there, but there is a bit lacking on other details. Some of the color callouts if any are not quite accurate either. I am hoping that Werner Wings will provide some modifications to correct some of the flaws. And a future decal sheet for HCS-5/4 We did send 4 aircraft to the desert. I have the 1/48 skunk model/Italeri kit with Cobra update. It still falls short a bit in accuracy but it does help. The huge 35th scale kit is quite intense in parts. And it would be a long term project to build a replica of the actual bird I flew in. I have a few pics i took to help with the build. Your build is quite a motivator. Getting up there and something that I have really need to start on. Can't believe the Gulf War is 30 years ago plus. Thanks for sharing an excellent build and your summary. it is one of the best Sikorsky Blackhawk family build I have seen. Oh if I may ask, how long did it take you to build this? Despite their size at least for me, helo's are not really quick builds.
Hi Chuck! Thanks for the kind words. I would LOVE to see your progress and reference photos of your HH-60. I am not as savvy on Navy birds but I still see a lot of commonality.
As for how long it took me, I think it was about a year from start to finish. That year consisted of about an hour or two a night after the kids were in bed, plus a lot of time pausing the plastic modeling for the 3d modeling to build correction or back date parts, then printing and proofing and correcting if/as needed. I am probably going to start another one soon, backdating an MH-60L to represent my C2 UH-60A as it was in Bosnia. Now that I know where all the booby traps are, the next one should hopefully not take me as long.
🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
Very attractive and respectable build Ramon, very much befitting to the image
of a MH-60A Black Hawk.
The paint color I would say is just spot on, and the photography is a good plus on this post and a heavy visual helper.
Thank you for sharing these images.
Thank you for the kind words!
It's always good to see a completed Kitty Hawk kit, especially when it's as good as this one. The photography is great as well, definitely liked.
Thanks George!
Ran across this in the random articles at the bottom of the page. Very nice build, I wish the kitty hawk kits were still around.
Thanks for the compliment Matt! Yeah, KH was a company with great potential. I hope its employees as well as its tooling went to another model company to be re-released some day soon.