1/48 Hasegawa Sea King

OLD 66 With Scratch built Apollo 13 diorama

  "A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE"

Gallery Article by Michael Jack on June 10 2013

 

 

The Helicopter 
To build my diorama I first purchased the 1/48 scale SH-3D Sea King from Hasegawa with the "OLD 66" markings, which are rare finds these days.  If you cant find one, you can purchase any 1/48 SH-3D Sea King as there is after market decals from Apollo decals (AD4801) or Steel Beach decals.  I used a mix of the Apollo decals & the box decals for my build, to get as accurate as possible to 66 at that time period.  I added a cover over the Apollo 13 capsule decal on the stbd nose under the pilots window, as it was revealed after landing on the carrier.  The frogman on the cargo door represents the UDT-11 Swimmers, I had to paint by hand as neither decal sheet that I had provided it. (steel beach do)

As this was my 3rd Sea king build, it went together quick & without any problems. I had to scratch build from evergreen plastic the sonar instrument control panel in the cabin, the seats that run along the port aft side, the yagi antenna on the sponson supports used for apollo communications, the film camera's & cables at the cargo door, & the cockpit side windows. The rear tail rotor blades are brass from Prop Blur. 

The Navy's most famous Sea King, being instrumental in the recovery of Apollo's 8-10-11-12 & 13. "OLD 66" with bu Nu 152711, is also know as 401.  During July & November 1969, US Navy helicopters changed from 2 digit modexes to 3 digit, but because of public relation & familiarization of this helo, 401 was painted over with 66 prior to Apollo 12 & Apollo 13 recoveries, also to note prior to 13 the rotor head, tail & wheel sponson colours went from blue to red, & had an unusual trim line painted on her, as the port side was higher then the stbd.  For Apollo's 8-11-12 her trim line was equal mirror image both sides, with the large 66 changing to a smaller size on Apollo's 12 & 13.

As the Black knights helo 66 was new & far from retirement in the HS-4 squadron fleet of anti submarine hunters, she remained in service instead of becoming a museum piece. Unfortunately in 1975 she was lost in a night training exercise off San Diego while deploying her sonar. The crew survived, but the Pilot Leo Rolek suffered a ruptured spleen and died of his injuries three weeks later. 

There are several replicas of this chopper in museums & one in particular from the movie Apollo 13 is on the USS Hornet museum & another on USS Midway museum.

 

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The Command Module:
I could not justify buying the new 1/48 Dragon CSM, just to use the CM lower half, as it does not give the option of the top shroud off anyhow.  Using blue print plans I made the CM from 1 piece of styrene cut into a semi circle, then cutting out windows & vents first, I warped it into a cone shape & tack glued both ends with a small strip of plastic from the inside & capped off each end with plastic card.

The inner parachute stowage included around 100 scratch built pieces with the float bags being propellant cylinders from a 1/24 Gemini capsule. Painting the pentagon & hexagon pattern was no easy feat. The CM was then scribed with detailed panel lines & painted with burns from reentry, I then marked out on a copy of my 1/48 CM blue print all the foil left on the capsule. Then reveresd it, placed it on the back of some gold bare metal foil, cut it out & applied to the capsule. A few strokes of silver on areas completed the reentry weathering.

As the CM is in water the heat shield was not seen or required, I just added a small amount of model putty under the front of the CM to represent this, as the hatch was pulled clear of the water by the straps at the rear. The floatation collar & Raft were made from plastic tube cut into segments & glued together, putty was used to fill gaps.

The Figures:
The kit I used for the 66 crew, Apollo 13 astronauts, UDT-11 divers was the US pilot/ground crew set B from Hasagawa (4805).  They were chopped up switched around, melted, fixed with putty.  Some faces were cut off & swapped, helmets modified to SPH-3 style of the time.  Dive tanks made from plastic tube, mask & tank straps, lifejackets, made from putty. There are 12 in total as there is a NASA official sitting in the cabin.  The yellow Billy Pugh net was also made up of 88 evergreen plastic pieces, with brass rod used for winch cable. The dive camera is also evergreen plastic.

The Base:
I used wood to construct the base at 43cm x 37cm with depth of 4.5cm.  I routed a 3mm recess around the top to put the perspex in.  I got that from a hardware store as it had a rippled pattern on it like water.  I mixed & poured epoxy on the perspex covering it completely about 2mm thick, then using a large brush made small circles from the centre & away from we're the CM & raft were to be positioned & worked outward to the edge with larger circles until epoxy started to harden. 

More clear epoxy was painted on to raft, collar & CM for helo wash. The inside of the box was painted with dark sea blue & swirls of white to give depth to the scene.  Underneath the Perspex I glued the divers legs with fins on, the sea anchor, the parachute made from paper crumpled up with nylon thread to represent the lines.  Once water scene was dry I smeared on aqua blue with a rag, just enough so you can still see through.  Then made up more epoxy & drizzled it on in large circles stopping & starting all the way around on each & also around CM, raft, & divers.  Once dry smeared on white to the raised areas to represent sea chop & foam.  Then mixed up more epoxy this time with a few drops of green in & painted on around CM to represent dye in the water to mark location. 

The Helo stand was made from aluminum bar bent into a curve & screwed to the base, a small opening was made in the helo under the cabin floor.  Thanks & enjoy my Diorama of Apollo 13's successful failed voyage From the Earth to the Moon.

Michael Jack

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Photos and text © by Michael Jack