paddy
Well-known member
Hi everyone....
My first build for quite a few years so bear with me while i lean the ropes all over again. I have chosen this Helicopter to "practice" on as i have several and i didn't want to mess up a perfectly good Tamiya Mustang or something equally exotic
and expensive.
I have some PE that i appear to have bought when i purchased the kits which surprised me when i opened the box, other than that i have a collection of Tamiya paint pots that have gone hard and a tube of glue like concrete. Hopefully I will get up the the Duxford airfield this week and snap some detail pictures so i know where to put some of this PE.
anyway, here goes nothing
I have written a short blurb to try and explain why the Royal Navy found itself with converted old Seakings for its primary AEW.
In the mid 70s the British government decided to scrap its major fleet carriers, Ark Royal and Eagle.
It half-heartedly set about building three invincible class carriers which were basically Helicopter platforms designed to hunt and kill Soviet subs in the North Sea. It was to be the end of the Navy's fast jets. The Phantoms were mostly scrapped and the Buccaneers were transferred as bombers to the RAF but strangely retained their arrester hooks etc. Move on a couple of years and the Falklands conflict. The navy had no carriers as such The largest of the helicopter carriers HMS Hermes was dragged out of retirement and the recently finished HMS Invincible was quickly fitted out (the new Ark Royal and Illustrious, the other two invincible carriers were not ready). Hermes set sail with 4 Sea Kings, 16 BAE Sea Harriers, 12 Sea King HAS.5, 6 Sea King HC.4. Invincible set sail with 12 BAE Sea Harriers,10 Sea King HAS.5.
Altogether 44 naval fighting ships. 22 Naval support ships, 3 Ocean liners and 8 roll on roll off ferries (which took troops), 5 container ships took a further 70 Helicopters and 24 Harriers. Another 30 assorted freighters with weapons and vehicles also made their way to the south Atlantic. A combined fleet of over 100 ships, 52 harriers and 100 helicopters.
Now the astute amongst you will notice that as a battle group this motley bunch had no AEW (Airborne early warning) aircraft. The Gannets that had performed this roll with the conventional carriers were unable to operate from the helicopter carriers and it was only good fortune that the Navy had been able to convince the MOD (ministry of Defence) that the Harrier should be carried on invincible carriers at all. Even so they were only fitted out to carry 4 each as fighter protection against armed reconnaissance aircraft while operating as sub hunters in the North Sea. It’s to the great credit of the Harriers that some operated from the hastily converted 15000-ton container ship Atlantic conveyor such was our deficiency in carriers. (the conveyor was sunk by 2 Exocet missiles when mistaken for a carrier)
The lack of AEW aircraft in the Falkland meant the loss of several frigates, Destroyers and dozens of service personnel as well as civilian commandeered ships.
The proposed fleet cover by the RAF Shackleton AEW.2 was too unresponsive and at too great a distance to be practical. Consequently, two Sea King HAS2s were modified in 1982 with the addition of the Thorn-EMIARI 5980/3 Searchwater LAST radar attached to the fuselage on a swivel arm and protected by an inflatable dome. This allowed the radar to be lowered below the fuselage during flight and for it to be raised for landing. These prototypes, designated HAS2(AEW), were both flying within 11 weeks and deployed with 824 "D" Flight on HMS Illustrious, serving in the Falklands after the cessation of hostilities. A further eight HAS2s were modified to a production standard, known as the AEW2. These entered operational service in 1985, being deployed by 849 Naval Air Squadron.
As is so often the case the British MOD was caught with its pants down and the stop- gap Seakings were to carry on the role of AEW for another 30+ years retiring it is expected in 2018. With two new 70,000-ton Queen Elizabeth class carriers nearing completion I see the role has now been passed to a new AEW&C version of the Merlin helicopter (Airborne early warning and command). Airfix have recently launched a 1/48 Merlin model so expect an AEW upgrade in the future?
This build is a Hasegawa SeaKing AEW Mk2 in 1:48 with various eduard fittings in PE and some assorted parts from a Flightpath conversion set which I will point out along the way.
I hope none of you are in a rush as this could take some time
To be continued ...............
My first build for quite a few years so bear with me while i lean the ropes all over again. I have chosen this Helicopter to "practice" on as i have several and i didn't want to mess up a perfectly good Tamiya Mustang or something equally exotic
and expensive.I have some PE that i appear to have bought when i purchased the kits which surprised me when i opened the box, other than that i have a collection of Tamiya paint pots that have gone hard and a tube of glue like concrete. Hopefully I will get up the the Duxford airfield this week and snap some detail pictures so i know where to put some of this PE.
anyway, here goes nothing
I have written a short blurb to try and explain why the Royal Navy found itself with converted old Seakings for its primary AEW.
In the mid 70s the British government decided to scrap its major fleet carriers, Ark Royal and Eagle.
It half-heartedly set about building three invincible class carriers which were basically Helicopter platforms designed to hunt and kill Soviet subs in the North Sea. It was to be the end of the Navy's fast jets. The Phantoms were mostly scrapped and the Buccaneers were transferred as bombers to the RAF but strangely retained their arrester hooks etc. Move on a couple of years and the Falklands conflict. The navy had no carriers as such The largest of the helicopter carriers HMS Hermes was dragged out of retirement and the recently finished HMS Invincible was quickly fitted out (the new Ark Royal and Illustrious, the other two invincible carriers were not ready). Hermes set sail with 4 Sea Kings, 16 BAE Sea Harriers, 12 Sea King HAS.5, 6 Sea King HC.4. Invincible set sail with 12 BAE Sea Harriers,10 Sea King HAS.5.
Altogether 44 naval fighting ships. 22 Naval support ships, 3 Ocean liners and 8 roll on roll off ferries (which took troops), 5 container ships took a further 70 Helicopters and 24 Harriers. Another 30 assorted freighters with weapons and vehicles also made their way to the south Atlantic. A combined fleet of over 100 ships, 52 harriers and 100 helicopters.
Now the astute amongst you will notice that as a battle group this motley bunch had no AEW (Airborne early warning) aircraft. The Gannets that had performed this roll with the conventional carriers were unable to operate from the helicopter carriers and it was only good fortune that the Navy had been able to convince the MOD (ministry of Defence) that the Harrier should be carried on invincible carriers at all. Even so they were only fitted out to carry 4 each as fighter protection against armed reconnaissance aircraft while operating as sub hunters in the North Sea. It’s to the great credit of the Harriers that some operated from the hastily converted 15000-ton container ship Atlantic conveyor such was our deficiency in carriers. (the conveyor was sunk by 2 Exocet missiles when mistaken for a carrier)
The lack of AEW aircraft in the Falkland meant the loss of several frigates, Destroyers and dozens of service personnel as well as civilian commandeered ships.
The proposed fleet cover by the RAF Shackleton AEW.2 was too unresponsive and at too great a distance to be practical. Consequently, two Sea King HAS2s were modified in 1982 with the addition of the Thorn-EMIARI 5980/3 Searchwater LAST radar attached to the fuselage on a swivel arm and protected by an inflatable dome. This allowed the radar to be lowered below the fuselage during flight and for it to be raised for landing. These prototypes, designated HAS2(AEW), were both flying within 11 weeks and deployed with 824 "D" Flight on HMS Illustrious, serving in the Falklands after the cessation of hostilities. A further eight HAS2s were modified to a production standard, known as the AEW2. These entered operational service in 1985, being deployed by 849 Naval Air Squadron.
As is so often the case the British MOD was caught with its pants down and the stop- gap Seakings were to carry on the role of AEW for another 30+ years retiring it is expected in 2018. With two new 70,000-ton Queen Elizabeth class carriers nearing completion I see the role has now been passed to a new AEW&C version of the Merlin helicopter (Airborne early warning and command). Airfix have recently launched a 1/48 Merlin model so expect an AEW upgrade in the future?
This build is a Hasegawa SeaKing AEW Mk2 in 1:48 with various eduard fittings in PE and some assorted parts from a Flightpath conversion set which I will point out along the way.
I hope none of you are in a rush as this could take some time
To be continued ...............
... 
