The Little World

Upon opening the Italeri Bell Model 47 box and sliding out the two sprues I was struck by the fact that nothing on them looked like it could end up being an airplane. A collection of random boxy shapes interspersed with spindly framework. Frighteningly delicate parts.

And when you come to think of it, wasn’t this just the Bell 47 in real life? I know it featured in Whirlybirds ” and ” M*A*S*H ” and lots of other dramas set in the 50’s – including my own at Brazeau Dam – but surely these plastic fragments would never make a helicopter.

Nevertheless I pressed onwards, knifing, clipping, and sanding. It made for a careful morning’s work at the Scale Modellers club rooms in Noranda. Of course I could have done it at home, but I find the fun of companionship more than makes up for the half-hour motor trip to get there. And with a portable tool box, you can actually get a lot of the subassembly work done without getting bored. Then homework goes much faster.

Italeri were clever with the tail boom – it was going to have to be a triangular framework no matter how you broke it apart, but they split the bottom long tube precisely – it made the first, critical, assembly go easily and then everything could hang from that. Let us hope the little Lycoming engine is going to mount squarely as most of the rotor assembly set on top of it.

I was slightly amused by the Mr Color paint I selected for the bulk of the aircraft – they refer to it as ” Character Yellow “. I should have called it Trainer Yellow or – as a personal memory – Mannix Yellow. F Mannix Ltd painted everything they had Yellow with red oxide fenders and bumpers. It would have been the cheapest paints they could find, but at least the cats and scrapers were visible in the woods.

The real shock comes when you compare the parts to the Boeing Vertol CH 147 Chinook that is in the Little Workshop at the same time. A vast time between their conception and deployment in the real world and an equally vast difference in the powerplant available to the designers. The rotors for the Bell look like window slats compared to those of the Chinook.

I shall persevere – eventually this will look like it might fly.