According to Wikipedia the Sikorsky H-34 (company designation S-58) is a piston-engined military helicopter originally designed by American aircraft manufacturer Sikorsky as an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft for the United States Navy. It has seen extended use when adapted to turbine power by the British licensee as the Westland Wessex and Sikorsky as the later S-58T.

H-34s served, mostly as medium transports, on every continent with the armed forces of 25 countries. It saw combat in Algeria, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and throughout Southeast Asia. Other uses included saving flood victims, recovering astronauts, fighting fires, and carrying presidents. It was the last piston-engined helicopter to be operated by the United States Marine Corps, having been replaced by turbine-powered types such as the UH-1 Hueyand CH-46 Sea Knight. A total of 2,108 H-34s were manufactured between 1953 and 1970.

I wanted to have this iconic chopper for my Vietnam war collection and so i bought the above pictured Trumpeter model in 1/48. I wanted to use the new pilot miniatures from Empress Miniatures for this model. Normally the scale 1/48 isn’t that far of and usable with 28mm figures as you can see here:

The US Marine figure by empress fits into the cargo hold and works perfect along the Trumpeter model. No the pilot figures have somewhat short legs and can’t reach the pedals of the cockpit . That is I presume to make them fit into other cockpits too. What i did was to lengthen the legs on both pilots by 3 mm so they fit in better then.

left before right after surgery and some paint. When the canopy is added it works really well:

So after the inside of the chopper was finished the rest was build ,painted ,decaled up and weathered you get this:

Here are a few pictures showing the H 34 with some Empress Miniatures :

And to top it up some pictures of the chopper “flying” over my gaming table:

The only thing missing now is a Crew chief and a door gunner miniature. So hurry up Empress!!!!