The Little World

The naming convention for US Army helicopters uses the Indian tribes of the nation – a delightful thing. This is the third helicopter in the collection with a tribal connection.

There are more helos in the display cabinet, but they are either civilian or international versions that adopt their own names. So far I only have a Chinook and an Iroquois in military colours…the Piasecki Flying banana is RCAF so it doesn’t qualify as a Shawnee.

This one won’t in the end, as I have taken a liking to one of the choices of decal provided and it isn’t American. I daresay the Hobby Boss people make a US Army or US Navy version as well in their model catalogue.

The mouldings are a delight – they have gotten the whole aircraft on two grey sprue trees plus a clear one. The clear one has the main cockpit as one piece – a welcome sight. I was fearful that they would do a Czech on me and have a dozen separate panels. Much easier this way to get a good alignment.

The open nature of a troop helicopter – and in this case they seem to have also provided a hefty gun in the open door – means that you need to spend some time on the interior – and here is where I will be poring over the net for a week to see if anyone has taken an inside picture of a real one.

I note as well that the blades of the aircraft are realistically drooped on the sprue trees. Here’s hoping the drive shaft and linkages are going to go on straight when the time comes.

This will be a club build, and it will be interesting to see who has helicopter experience to advise me.