Team Yankee: 1-100 CH-53E Super Stallion

With the release of Team Yankee’s: Red Dawn expansion 4 new helicopters have been introduced to the game and the models that they are releasing for them are well…. ok, along with their cardboard rotor blades. What you have here is a 1:100 representation of the CH-53E “Super Stallion” as used by various forces during the Cold War.

What I have done is created a model that is true to scale for the miniatures, will print easily in just about any orientation with proper supports.

The Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion is a heavy-lift helicopter operated by the United States military. As the Sikorsky S-80, it was developed from the CH-53 Sea Stallion, mainly by adding a third engine, adding a seventh blade to the main rotor, and canting the tail rotor 20°.

Another added “treat” is that the rotors on this and the other helicopters are “chonky”, meaning they are a lot thicker than need to be but still look good. This prevents them from snapping, if they do drop it should break at the glue joint on the hub and not the rotor. If you use magnets on the rotor hub then there’s a higher chance they will just bounce and you can stick the whole thing right back on.

For a complete model you will need to print 7 rotor blades total, 1 rotor hubs, 1 tail rotor, and 1 fuselage. ( there are two different fuselages for this helicopter and it’s your choice on which one to use ). For some tips and tricks there’s a READ ME file included because gluing up the 7 rotor blades is a pain and it doesn’t look right no matter how perfect you align the rotor blades simply because it’s an odd number and configuration.

I have not broken this model up too much. I prefer to print these on my Peopoly so not only can I print them in 1 piece I can print 12 at a time.

Aside from that, on printers like Elegoo Mars and Anycubic Photon, if you rotate the model 60 degrees with the end down, just add your supports, hollow it out, add a couple of holes underneath for drainage, and print away. You may want to split the model so the fueling probe is a separate piece if you run into the issue of it being to tall for your printer.

For resin I prefer to use Siraya Tech Simple Clear mixed with Tenacious. I use 75-80 Simple to 20-25% Tenacious. This has not given me any problems since I started this mix and the only time I get failures now is when I am experimenting with things or forget to do my supports right.