The Little World

I think there is a head rolling around the Italeri printing works where they make the boxes for their kits.

The top of the box has superb artwork depicting a Sikorski MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter in US Navy colours. One end of the box repeats this. But one end and one side are marked as MH-47E – the designation for one of the variants of the Chinook; a far different machine. It definitely is a Sea Dragon in the box.

Never mind – the sprue trees inside look splendid – three grey and one clear, and the decal sheet is all one could ask for. As I intend to build mine as one of the 11 helicopters sold to the Japanese Maritime Self Defence force. ( AKA Japanese Navy ) the Hinomaru and lettering are striking. There will be a fair amount of common decals that also match the US version.

This is a big kit, and rightly so – it is a multi-blade heavy lift machine that is configured with extra-big sponsons and a dropping rear door to let out a mine-clearing sled. I hope to locate one of these as an aftermarket part, or at least find a good reference to scratch-build one.

Big storage box coming up for this one…