This is one of my recent works, the H-34 of VNAF 219th Squadron. The VNAF 219th Squadron official name is Long Ma. Long Ma is a mythical dragon-horse beast creature featured on the squadron patch. Otherwise known as King Bee to the men of Special Forces who often fought behind enemy line. These H-34's carried them into battle and brought them home.

The VNAF 219th Squadron H-34 camouflage was very interesting; they were painted in whatever dark drab colour the Air Viet Nam (then the maintenance contractor) technician could find, and in whatever scheme they fancied. As the the result, each of the VNAF 219th H-34 carried a unique camouflage scheme. The only thing common among them was that they did not have VNAF insignia and Republic of Viet Nam flag painted on the fuselage as they usually had to fly insertion missions across the border into North Viet Nam. The H-34 featured here had a King Bee art work painted by one of the US Special Force soldier.

The models is the H-34 1/72 Italeri model. Italeri has produced very beautiful H-34 in this scale; the finished product does look like the real thing. I built almost straight from the box, with small details added like hydraulic, electrical wire were detailed by small gauge copper wire recycled from a broken toy motor. The only major thing I had to fix was to correct the direction of tail propeller blades as they were moulded in wrong direction. For details I drew in those extra visible panel lines using real pictures as reference. Decals were home made, luckily there were not many for this aircraft.

I hope you enjoy my works. The crew featured in the digitized flying H-34 are from the 1/72 Italeri NATO pilot &crew, the Special Force men are 1/35 Dragon figures.

I would like to dedicate this work to the brave men of ARVN and US Armed Forces who had fought to keep my South Viet Nam home country free from communism, many of them still never made it home.

Text & Photo by Yankee-Caribou (Hoa Long)
(Source: ARC)

This is the very old 1/48 scale Fujimi F-5A Freedom Fighter kit.

The kit had no cockpit interior details, other than a deformed pilot figure with a side peg that is supposed to glue to the side fuselage. The exterior details were almost non existent. What it lacked in details, however, it made up in shape accuracy, an important foundation to build into a respectable model. But to build it into a good standard would require a lot of scratch building effort.

I had originally planned to incorporate the F-5E Black Box cockpit since that closely resembled the F-5A's, and modified the instrument panel into the F-5A style. Since the Black Box kit was out of production, I used the 1/48 Monogram F-5E pit as the substitute. This was where the problems began.

The kit claimed to be 1/48 scale, but when the F-5E pit was placed in, it was too large to fit inside. I suspected the Fujimi kit was undersize. After obtaining information and dimensions for the F-5A on the web, I discovered that the kit scale was close to 1/52 scale. Oddly, the fuselage height was close to 1/50 scale. To enlarge the model into a 1/48 scale would be next to impossible due to the complex shape of the fuselage. Also, there was no way to add height to the fuselage. Instead, I decide to make it into a 1/50 scale by adding 14mm to the overall length. The extensions were added forward of the cockpit and fuselage aft. The cockpit was sanded down to fit in the opening. Not an easy task, but I was able to make it work. The wings were also extended 4mm on each side, and widened 1.5mm to match the 1/50 scale length. The model now stood 288mm in length, and 154mm wing span. Another big tasks were drilling out holes and vents at various locations; there were 27 of them. Panel lines and access panels were scribed with the UMM razor saw at appropriate places.

After the kit was assembled, a lot of sanding and filling with Mr. Surfacer 500 were done to get rid of the surgery scars before painting. I used enamel paints from Model Master FS color line and did a little tuning of the shades to match the SEA scheme. The T-O for Vietnam scheme was: FS34079, FS34102, FS30219 for upper, and FS36622 for lower surface.

The checker band, insignias and fin flags yellow background were painted first. After finished, they were masked and the rest of the fuselage was painted. I mixed the medium green FS34102 with 50% Testor olive green little bottle. The tan FS30219 was lightened with a mixture of insignia white and yellow. The dark green FS34079 was darkened with 5 eye-drops of flat black into the bottle. The underside called for FS36622; I added about 50% white because it seemed a little too dark.

Markings were done using Testors clear decal printed by the HP Photosmart printer. There were some trials and errors went into this task in order to make the marking more presentable.

After six months of on and off building, it was finally done. Even though the model was off-scale, it resembled fairly close to the original Skoshi Tiger.

(Photos & text by Triet Cam)

The original plan was built straight OOB "Out Of the Box", and one thing leads to the others, I end up with a major plastic surgery, additions to the kit were modify, add-on detail and scrap building.
People say "picture worth thousand words", so let me brief on the construction progress, and let the pictures tell the story, here we go:

Add-on detail in the Cockpit area, using Styrene, Brass wire, and Milliput epoxy.
Scrap build safety seat belt, using Aluminum foil and PE buckets, reconstruct seat frame, using Piano wire and Brass wire.

Add-on detail in the Fuselage area, using Styrene, and Brass wire.

Add-on Engine detail using Styrene, and Brass wire, and lead wire, scrap build Oil cooler, carburetor intake duct using styrene and brass screen.

Separated cowling and reconstruct Fire wall area, using Styrene, Aluminum foil, scrap build engine support frame using Piano wire, brass wire, and lead wire .

Separate flap from the wing and reposition to flap down position, separate control surfaces and reposition, using brass tubing for rocket tube

Finish the model with Gunze and Tamiya Acrylic color, clear flat with Model Master Acrylic and pastel weathering, decorate the model with decal came with the kit, depict the VNAF O-1E Bird-Dog (51-14981), 124th OS, landing on the USS Midway, April 30, 1975
With all the hard work and crazy ideal, the reward is not too bad at Modelmania 2005 model show and contest.

Today the Bird-Dog (51-14981) resign at Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, Florida, if you have a chance to stop by, and say Hello to the old friend.
Enjoy!

* Check on "Untold Stories Section / FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM (on this website) for a full true story about The VNAF L-19 serial # 51-14981.