I want to do a dio with my HH-53, but I am faced with some problems:

Here are the problems I am faced with:

1) How could I secure the chopper to the base while having it "hover" over the jungle? Clear plastic rod?

2) How could I make the smoke drifting up though the trees? I mean like using glue to "hold" it in that position.

and 3) How could I make vegetation, jungle, and trees known to that part of the world?

The chopper is in 1/48 scale, so everything has to be to scale.

Let me know!

Thanks, Chip

I don't know it this would work. My idea was to build a diorama of some Rangers fast-roping from a blackhawk. I was going to make the rope out of some sort of strong wire. If your HH-53 had a winch you might be able to use the same sort of idea. I have not tried this and don't know if I could find any wire that is strong enough to support the mode; however, it would look good if it worked. For the smoke you could use cotton batten. Just strech it and color it to the appropriate color.
Hope this helped
Aaron

Ooo smoke, smoke and fire are the hardest thing (in my mind to simulate).
Here is one thread about it - lots of good stuff here
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/7932&page=1

Other things that may be used for smoke are Steel wool, cotton balls, Rail Road Engine Smoke machines (actual smoke)

As far as fixing the Helo - you could make one of the trees a bit larger than the rest and it could attach to the skid. Similar to this


or

here is another flavor of that type of thing
Sorry direct links aren't allowed here - cut and paste
http://www.pcmodeler.com/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/Other/Old_Dominion_Open_2003/020903ff.jpg

For jungle vegitation I have seen posts suggesting to go to your pet store and check out the fish tank plastic vegitation section.

Yeah all you have to do is suspend it from a tree.

Hi chip,
On a related subject, I read a great novel on SAR in Vietnam.
It's "North SAR" by Gerry Carroll. This guy really knew his stuff and was very good at telling a story. Before you're done reading it, you'll know exactly what it was like to fly with these guys.
He was a boyhood friend of Tom Clancy's, who convinced him to write when the met again as adults. He had plenty of experience as a Navy pilot to draw on for his books. I even saw him show up on a couple of those military documentaries on Discovery on the History Channel too. Unfortunately, he only wrote 3 books before he died. A real shame because he had the potential to be one of the better novelists in this field.
"North SAR", "No Place to Hide" and "Ghostriders One" are the titles to his 3 books and I would highly recommend them to you.

The support wire would not be the big problem here, the winch would since it would bear the entire weight of the model at an unbalanced point with small attachment points. You would have to scratchbuild the winch in a material that would support the weight of the helo as well as the stress on the joints of the winch itself and the attachment to the fuselage.