Kitty Hawk MH-60L Black Hawk

This is a difficult build and not for beginners or those with heart problems. Kitty Hawk has a reputation for tough builds and this is no exception. While I like the final result and the kit met my goals, it suffers from engineering flaws and errors. The kit is expensive and can only be recommended if you must have a 1/35 scale Black Hawk.
My goal here was to model a Somalia era Black Hawk (1993). I imagined that this machine would not have participated on the day of the large battle (as depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down”), but rather stayed at the base.
For reference, I recommend Mark Bowden’s book (Black Hawk Down). The movie of the same name has some inaccuracies, but (with the willing participation of the US military) it sets the gold standard for accurate equipment in a Hollywood blockbuster. There is very little CGI and the flying scenes from both inside and outside the helicopters are gorgeously filmed.
The kit itself has stunning detail in a lot of areas. The engineering is sometimes good, but can be frustrating. There are many weapon choices included if you want to do a gunship (not so applicable on troop ships). I used two Live Resin M-134 Gatling guns as the kit parts were average. I was somewhat let down by the cost of the Live Resin kits (one had to be ordered for each side) and the absence of any instructions whatsoever.
There are only a few photos of the 160th SOAR helicopters from this deployment. This was before the days when everyone had a digital camera. The 160th is a special operations unit with some level of secrecy, and I would imagine a camera on operations would be frowned upon.
Most of the helicopters had names painted on them by the crew chiefs. “Heavy Metal”, “Thunderstruck” and “Razors Edge” were all examples found in Somalia. As these machines have a (somewhat) common AC/DC inspired naming convention, I decided to label mine “Back in Black” (seems natural for a “Black” Hawk, don’t you think?).
The helicopters also had large white numbers (possibly tape?) on the crew doors. I selected 69 as my number as I can find no record of it. The Black Hawk radio call signs were “Super” followed by the helicopter number. Thus, this machine would be “Super-69”.