Small Scale Military Headquarters

Somtimes the best laid plans can go awry. Sometimes change works out. I have all but given up on the FW-190A during my lifetime so I decided to use the funds that I had set aside for a couple of them to buy the two new UH-1 Hueys. I was going to place the order this week. Then I made an unexpected and coincidental find on Craigslist. Seems that for just under the price of the two models with shipping, I suddenly had the opportunity to own some pieces of a REAL Huey!

The seller was a young Army Vet who had rescued a pilot's door from a Dustoff/med-evac Huey wreck. He also cut off a piece of the nose (which is fiberglass) Included in the lot was a course indicator instrument he managed to pluck from the copter.

So do I spend the money on a pair of Chinese toys and wait for the next time authentic pieces of American Military History are for sale 10 minutes from my house? I think not!

The door handles work and the stenciling and red cross get high cool ratings.

Now I want the two models even more!!

Nice One Denis. All you need now is the rest of it lol, it would look kool sitting in your front yard.


Cheers
Greg

Very cool, thats something I'd hang in my collecting room; the "museum" as my wife calls it.
Nice find.

Just like that Johnny Cash song one piece at a time.

WOW!!!
What a great find and right before you pulled the trigger on the model hueys.
Nice!
Razor

What a great find. Think of the many different situations when that door was opened and closed - normal service, training, emergencies, good times and bad. Really a piece of history to be honored.

cool !!!

89 857 parts to go ! With patience you can fly a real one well done

That's actually pretty cool. I've got a complete UH-1H tail rotor assembly in my garage and somewhere I have an 8 day clock as well as a old foot locker with all my old flight gear, helmet and survival vest w/ radio. Glad to see I'm not the only one who likes this stuff!

On the way home today from the Museum, I took a short detour to the Clermont County Vietnam Veteran's Memorial where they have a Med-evac/Dustoff on display. Got to see in person where my parts fit in.






The pilot's door is indeed quite small.









This nose piece is in much better condition.

1:1 is always better. You can get the toys later.

On the subject of historic aircraft parts, I've got part of the wing from a Cold War-era B-52B Stratofortress









This was salvaged back in October 1999 on the south end of Roger's Dry Lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base. I was camping on the base with my Boy Scout troop and there were two wrecked B-52s about a mile from our campsite. Some of my friends and I hiked out there and came back with all sorts of scrap. Here are scans of some of the photos I took of the planes:







...and a couple better pics by a professional photographer I found on Google:

Those last two photos are sad....but fabulous! How surreal that must have been. Great that you were able to recover a piece! Reminds me immediately of the old Soplata collection near Cleveland.