ADF Helicopters

20/07/201930/08/2015 by jbarton11

I’ve made some progress with my Australian Helos: a couple of MRH Taipans (NH-90 transport helos) and ARH Tigers (Eurocopter Tigers). The ADF use a 3 colour camouflage scheme and painting it has been a welcome change from the modern US schemes which are just one or two colours. The only painful part is the colour patterns are consistent between helicopters. I’ve tried to reproduce this, but obviously at 3mm it’s almost impossible to be precise.

First the Tigers – I did 7 of these (I broke the tail off one, and I don’t think I’d ever run all of them).

E-7A Wedgetail – Complete

20/07/201921/12/2014 by jbarton11

The final step in this build was to print up some custom decals. I used Bare-Metal Foil‘s decal film. This product is a clear film that can be printed on with a laser printer. They’ve a number of variations with different colours and laser printing options all available. It was simply a matter of creating some images and then finding a high enough quality printer to print them out. At this scale even the huge markings on these planes are still only 2-3mm across so you need a good printer. I printed the following image, note the three different copies. I ended up using one and a half.

ADF Air Units – O8 Miniature Review

20/07/201920/12/2014 by jbarton11

A large number of 3mm tanks, trucks and Helos arrived the other day: the core of my ADF strike group. Rather than just showing some finished models I’m going to show some pictures of how they arrive and provide some thoughts on Odzial Osmy’s (O8) miniatures. The numbers in brackets are the O8 product codes.

E-7A Wedgetail – Painted

01/05/202417/12/2014 by jbarton11

Another bit of progress with the Wedgetail this evening. It’s now fully painted – all it’s waiting for is for me to print and apply the decals and then give it a good seal with dull coat.

Not much to say really. The main colour is White Grey (VMA 71.119). The details are either Medium Sea Grey (VMC 70.870) or my standard black mix (50-50 mix of black and a dark grey). Lastly I used NATO Camouflage Wash (MIG-1008) to give it some depth and pick out the flap lines.

E-7A Wedgetail – Radar Dome, Antennas & Winglets

20/07/201902/12/2014 by jbarton11

Today I finished the scratch building of the Wedgetail. The details that separate this from a normal 737 are the numerous antenna, bulges, radar domes and winglets that protrude from the fuselage. There are literally dozens of these, but at this scale they would be barely noticeable, continually break off and turn it into a little porcupine. None of which lend me towards adding them. However there are a few bits that need to be included:

E-7A Wedgetail – Body work

01/05/202418/11/2014 by jbarton11

A sick day meant no traveling out to game tonight, but that did let me get a bit of progress on the Wedgetail. First up I removed all the bits I didn’t want on there: wingtips, landing gear and print. After a half hour playing with the Dremel and some needle files I ended up with the following.

E-7A Wedgetail – The start

01/05/202426/10/2014 by jbarton11

Mentioned elsewhere in this blog was my the start of my latest Hind Commander strike group. I’ve found my E-8C JSTARS enormously useful in my USMC task force and so I’d like to include another AEW&C asset in this force. They are also not typically available as retail models so provide a nice little conversion opportunity. My next task force is going to be an ultra-modern Australian Defence Force (ADF) strike group based on the Recon doctrine. The current AEW&C used by the ADF (operated by the Royal Australian Airforce – RAAF) is the E-7A Wedgetail which is based on a 737-700.

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