Subject:
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Re: New MOC: Mi-24 Hind-D SOV (Special Operations Variant)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build.military
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Date:
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Mon, 8 Apr 2002 10:01:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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474 times
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Magnus,
You've certainly got a point about the main rotor...I'd originally fitted a
four-blade model to my Hind too, back before I started going over the aircraft
again for realism. It was a close call for me too, but after long consideration
I took the five-bladed model on sheer aesthetics. There are so, so many four-
bladed Western helicopters that even the most distinctively Russian of fuselages
looks like a cheap Apache knockoff without their trademark extra rotors. It's
amazing how much character that fifth blade adds to the model's overall effect.
I liked the door too; I'm not sure if it shows, but that's another application
of car roof hinges. There's a main roof plate built into the hull above and
below the door, with the flanges incorporated into the door halves themselves.
The single-stud 1x2s on the lower door lip mesh nicely with the underside of the
portholes on the upper door, so the thing seals shut beautifully. Just about
the only drawback is that the roof plates go too far into the hull to build an
identical door on the starboard side, which Hinds apparently have. I ignored
that, though, because the model's surprisingly fragile; there's a lot of
structural reinforcement built into the starboard bulkhead, because aside from
that only the floor and engine block connect the stepped cockpits to the rest of
the hull.
Improvements: I've been looking at landing gear, but I'm somewhat stymied by a
conflict between realism and LEGO. According to the Revell model kit I bought
to make my version more accurate, the crew cabin only goes back to the last pair
of portholes, with all the space aft of that between the stub wings reserved for
machinery, including the wheel wells for the rear landing gear. In LEGO
dimensions, however, such a short cabin (9x6 internal dimensions on my model)
would barely hold eight unarmed men...as a result, I built my cabin to run an
extra six studs back between the stub wings, which provides just enough room for
the assault team to sit in two rows of four facing each other. There's plenty
of room beneath the stepped cockpits for the forward gear, a 2x4 pocket five
plates deep, but the rear wheels would have to retract into the cabin. I'm
looking at raising the aft cabin floor to eliminate the two-stud internal
walkway which most directly obstructs that space, but I doubt I'd get any of the
wheels to retract flush with the hull. Hopefully I can try it out soon and get
some pictures up.
As for the tail taper, I'm still playing with it. The main problem I've been
encountering is the scale I'm working on; I'm looking to taper about 20 studs of
the tail, while I count 26 or 28 studs in the nose taper on my UCS X-Wing. The
angling effect of a taper produces a fractional-stud offset over the length of
the taper, which becomes more pronounced over shorter distances. In the X-Wing
it's perhaps an eighth of a brick, so it passes unnoticed; on mine it's more
like a third, which doesn't look so good. It's also a little difficult to do
the underside of the tail in plates, an effect which works well on the X-Wing
but I haven't been able to replicate to date. My initial mock-up's still in my
Hind parts bin, since it shows promise.
Marginally suspicious of the canopies, I must admit, even as I continue to look
for a Gunship to buy and study. I hope they accept standard flange connections,
since I still don't like the look of those click-hinge snowspeeder canopies.
Just a personal gripe, though. :)
Troop capacity: from my read of the background material, methinks that's a trend
specific to the Hind-D. All the descriptions mention the enhanced armor and
weapons of the D model, which I suspect ate up most of the cargo capacity for
troops...perhaps the weapons reload got adopted instead just because it was
light enough to fit.
Clearly that problem would disappear, however, if you mounted stolen Western
military-grade engines in place of the -D's original Isotovs. Hyopthetically
speaking. ;)
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