I have wanted to build one of these Sikorsky H-34 models ever since seeing this one fly at an event years ago. I got a call from a friend that he was wanting to sell it and I immediately made the purchase. This fuselage is manufactured by Darrell Sprayberry and was one of his first. It was a flying model when I purchased it but not in the colors that I wanted. I wanted to build an early 1960’s version of the “Presidential Transport” but I wanted to build the ARMY version that was in use before the Marines took over the job in later years.

I needed to completely disassemble the model and start stripping the paint. Once all the old paint was removed I sanded and repaired any imperfections and applied a couple of coats of “heavy build’ primer. Sanded to a nice smooth surface and started drawing lines for the hundreds of rivets and panel lines. I use a #2 pencil, tape and rulers for the panel lines and syringe, needle and glue for the rivets. This is a very large model even though it is only a 1/6th scale, the fuselage is 84 inches long and THAT’S A LOT OF RIVETS, lol.

I took a few pictures to the automotive paint store to get some “color matched” paint and have it applied in spray cans. I was not building a competition level model but a nice looking Sport Scale models and did not feel the necessity to assemble a paint booth and drag out all the spray equipment. I used a canopy as a booth and picked a nice day with temps on the 70’s, no wind and no humidity and started spraying. With the paint being automotive quality it went on very easy, no runs and dried quickly. After the paint completely cured it was time for the graphics which I ordered from Callie Graphics.

I wanted to included a cockpit but did not have a lot of great pictures for detail. I knew Scale Print had a cockpit and accessories available for a Sikorsky S-58. I messaged Stefan Radau and told him the scale I needed and he put everything in motion. While waiting on the order from Scale Print I ordered my pilots from BlackOpsToys. I ordered the “naked” figures, flight suits, heads, shoes and gloved hands and put it all together for some very realistic looking pilots. I needed something to identify them as “Preidential Pilots” so I downloaded a few patches and reduced them in size on the printer, cut them out and glued them on the flight suits. They needed a 4-point harness so I called up Mark Burks at Micro Designs and he sent me exactly what I needed. When the cockpit arrived I started putting it all together and was very pleased with the results.

I put everything back together and the model flew perfectly on the maiden flight you see above. It has Darrell Sprayberry custom mechanics, powered by a Kontronik 900 and Castle 160 ESC. It took A LOT OF WEIGHT in the nose and flys on 10,000 mah batteries and is equipped with a ModelSoundsInc sound system.