I've been working on the landing skid modification over the last couple of days.
I want to depict the chopper shown in the opening credits which had extended skids and emergency flotation packs. That chopper, N58243, was one of several used during the filming of the series and has been the most difficult for me to track down pictures of due to the fact (which I've only just found out) that it crashed into the ocean during the filming of the 6th episode of the first season killing a camera technician.
Here's a picture of the extended skids and float packs on another 500D
Here I've started work on the skid extensions. I used plastic rod of the same diameter as the skid and attached it with brass rod slightly bent to the angle of the extended portion
I used JB Weld PlasticWeld, an epoxy putty to make the float packs. It was fairly sticky to work with and took a while to get into the right shape but it turned out alright.
Here it is after a bit of sanding and a light brush coat of flat black
I also put together the rotor assembly and cleaned up the few remaining parts in preparation for painting
Yep, it's a tricky colour to spray. I normally give a light base coat of white, thinly applied, then it only needs probably two thin coats of the yellow to get a good finish.