Since my main project for the Vietnam GB is stuck in a rather long decaling phase, I needed something else to do to keep me motivated to finish this.
And what better vehicle to build for a Vietnam GB than one of the most famous birds in the history of photography:
People often think that this famous picture by dutch photographer Hugh van Es shows an evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon by a US Army or USMC Huey. Both assumptions are wrong though. It was in fact an evacuation of mostly vietnamese citizens somewhat deeply involved in the US war effort or intelligence operations from the roof of the Pittmann Hotel. And the helicopter in question was a "civilian" Bell 205 in service for Air America.
Air America you say? What is that?
Glad you asked. After the second world war, Claire Chennault, the former head of the american volunteer fighter pilots in mainland china (the "Flying Tigers") started a civilian, commercial airline operating in asia by the name of "Commercial Air Transport". But because of his connections to military and intelligence circles, his airline also provided services to intelligence operations in the area. They must have done a rather good job, becoming the second biggest cargo airline in 1949. One year later, the CIA bought the company, keeping commercial services running to maintain CATs cover as a civilian airline and maybe making a dollar or two on the side.
During the chinese civil war, the korean war and the indochina war, CAT provided logistical support and covert insertions and extractions of agents. With covert operations in support of the french in Indochina and growing involvement of the US in Laos and Vietnam, the CIA split the commercial and covert operations of CAT in 1959. From now on, the CIAs private asian spy-airline was known as "Air America".
Throughout the Vietnam war, Air America provided support to covert operations in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam as well as to regular US servicemen by flying medevac, s.a.r. and resupply missions when regular military aviation assets where not available immediately.
One Air America Bell 205 crew is even credited with shooting down a north vietnamese AN-2 colt while defending an outpost against an air raid. Making it the only helicopter to achieve an air-to-air victory over a fixed wing aircraft - ever!
Air America stayed in Vietnam as long as the US was involved, with Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon, being one of it's last and biggest missions. During this airlift operation, the above mentioned picture of Air Americas last flight out of the city was taken on April 29th, 1975.
If this little history of Air America intrigued you, I recommend the CIAs historical publication "Air America - Upholding the Airmen's bond"
And for your viewing pleasure, a few more pictures of Air America Hueys:
Given this rich history of Air America, I wanted to end this GB with what you might say is the helicopter, whose picture marked an end of the war. The whirly bird in question is a Bell 205 with registration #N47004. Unfortunately, there is no kit depicting this aircraft. But a little research showed, that the Bell 205 is identical to the UH-1H variant. Which again is a UH-1D with an upgraded engine, but no real difference on the outside. In the end it is supposed to look something like this:
just without the XW-PFJ registration on the door, since that was abandoned by Air America in 1974. XW-PFJ was the actual former registration of N47004.
Since I'm all into 1/48th scale - and most importantly: since it was readily available at local stores, I decided to use Italeris Bell UH-1D kit as a base for my project.
the box
the contents - the decals don't look too nice, but I won't use them anyway
Sprue A
Sprue B
And the clear parts. Lots of magnification and warping going on here. Even on the flat parts :|
Not a lot of plastic for a rather big aircraft, so it should be rather quick and easy compared to the massive Phantom. There's just one thing the pictures aren't showing very well:
So... yeah... that will keep me occupied with this kit. But if we wanted everything to fit perfectly without any modifications needed, we'd be building lego kits, right?
Wish me luck!
