I have been
eagerly awaiting this aircraft. I have seen these flying while I was
down in San Diego and as well as here in Calgary during the G-8 Summit.
This is the largest helicopter fliying in the western military. Used
exclusivly be the US Marines as a heavy lift troop transport another
version is used by the US navy for mine sweeping, the MH-53E Sea Dragon.
It appears
from the parts that Academy is planning on releasing the above mentioned
Sea Dragon. The kit has more parts than I have ever had to deal
within a helicopter kit. but it goes together like a dream.
The only other Academy Helo I had done is the CH-46 Sea Knight and I was
very impressed by that kit and really looking forward to the Sea Stallion.
It went together very well and with no complications. The folding
rotor system and tail is very well done and the details are great.
It is a good thing that this option is available as this helicopter has a
huge foot print with the rotors spread. The interior is amazing but
once everything is assembled it is dificult to see it all. I decided
not to place any of the machine guns on board, the box art show this
aircraft with the miniguns in the window and door but the kit only
provides two 50cal machine guns. These guns are an improvement over
the ones in the Sea Knight which lacked almost any details. I
decided that I was going to use the three colour camo pattern because I
like the way it looks and I didn't want to have a shelf full of grey
aircraft.
Click on
images below to see larger images
I used Testors
Modelmaser paints and freehanded the camo. Weathering was kept light
as the images I found of this scheme showed that it weathered very well.
Some exhaust staining was applied but that was about it. The newer
lo-vis greys don't seem to weather as well and show a lot more fading and
staining. The decals went on with only one minor glitch, the
"04" that goes on the nose doesn't between the details that are
below the windscreen. This was overcome by moving the decal farther
up the nose. I also fab two extra rotor braces for the folded
rotors.
This kit won gold at
the 2007 RMMC Model contest, you can see it in the above image along with the
CV-22 and the CH-46. To the right is a 1/72 scale CH-53E, this shows how
big the 1/48 scale kit is.
Gavin
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