1/72 Italeri VNAF Long Mã H-34

by Hỏa Long

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This is one of my recent works, the H-34 of VNAF 219th Squadron.  The VNAF 219th Squadron official name is Long Mã.  Long Mã 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. 

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

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.

Hỏa

Photos and text © by Hỏa Long