INCOMING - HELICOPTER PARTWORK FEATURES 1:72 SCALE SIKORSKY UH-60L BLACK HAWK

SMN REPORT

“Build up your Chopper Squad” is the rallying call on the sales video for this latest UK partwork release, Part 1 available now. And it looks an interesting buy for helo fans, as there’s a 1:72 scale model included with every issue.

First issue

As usual with partwork publications, the first issue is a heavily subsidised whammo release, in this case a 16-page full-colour magazine, strapped on to a blockbuster backing board, which also acts as the base for a bubble-pack containing the meat of the business, a metal-and-plastic 1:72 scale helicopter.

Army attacker

In this first issue, the helo of note is a Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk, finished in US Army colours, as flown in the 1991 Operation ‘Desert Storm.’

Assembly in minutes

What’s the model like? Well, it’s an easy build all right, containing the finished fuselage and six extra components in a plastic bag... it feels rather like shades of early Airfix, in fact. Those extras consist of a push-together stand base and arm, plus four rotor blades, with correctly swept tips. These are also push-fit parts, and it’s a pleasure to report that not only did they push with ease, but that the fit was firm and tight when complete. With an eye on non-specialist collectors, the rotors are designed as a one-way fit, for correct rotor assembly. 

Should you buy it?

The result is a fair representation of the real thing, and for a UK price of just £2.99 GBP ($4.80 USD)  HELICOPTER is a must-have, the model looking extremely fine on display. A close look reveals chunky windows, oversized rivets, and fairly crude gun and landing gear assemblies. But no matter - for the price, it’s pretty good, and some subtle airbrush work to add detail and weathering would make all the difference, bringing this UH-60L much more into the realm of ‘scale model’ rather than uber-toy item. 

Benefits of a strongly-built model

Actually, that chunky construction is no bad thing, because it does mean that the 220 mm (8.7 in) diameter rotors are likely to be undamaged in the event of collision with an unwary visitor. I speak with experience here, having had several delicate models wrecked by an attractive but clumsy (where scale miniatures are concerned) girlfriend!

Brains behind the product

We don’t know too much about the publisher, Amermedia, but HELICOPTER is similar to other  'magamodel' products in the line-up, featuring items such as fire engines, classic cars, bombers and fighters, rail locos, construction machinery, even a range of world taxis. Great stuff! We’d hazard a guess that model production comes from China, but the magazine - it comes complete with metal loops for binder fitting - is sourced via Key Publishing, a well known UK aerospace outfit with many magazines and books in its portfolio. 

Illustrations

The gorgeous side-views in HELICOPTER magazine's centre-spread are presumably reprints from other Key publications, but that’s fine - they look good and are well printed. A shame though, that none of the side-views match the colours of the supplied model.

SMN Scoresheet (out of 10)

We’ll give this a 10 for value, 9 for the 16 pages of magazine content, while the model scrapes a 7.5 - but with some work, you could turn it into a decent item. A pity though, that the side doors don’t slide open.

More issues in the pipeline

Accepting that the price will rise, as will availability - these products  last only a few weeks in retail outlets, thereafter being subscription-only items - we’re looking forward to seeing more of the ‘Chopper Squad’ flying in. In the first wave will be Sea King, Chinook and Apache, with items further down the line including Hind, Havoc, Merlin, Iroquois and S-58. A mouthwatering prospect for any helo lover.

HELICOPTER is available through retail outlets or online direct.

If you fancy a bigger UH-60L model kit altogether, then the Academy UH-60L to 1:35 scale could be your thing, and a very fine production it is.

Here's a foreign-language Amermedia site that gives you a good look at other ranges.

LEONARDO, F-16i, K9 THUNDER - HOT KITS FROM ACADEMY

SMN report:

The Italeri versions of Academy’s Leonardo da Vinci kits are proving successful, so what’s happening with Academy’s own productions? Well, there are plenty more on release, though as usual with these multi-market products, there are subtle changes in presentation, depending on where they are being sold.

Da Vinci series

Academy’s kits go under the simple title, ‘Da Vinci Machines Series’, rather than Italeri’s splendidly romantic ‘The Marvellous Machines’. Also, Academy bundles the da Vinci kits into a loose grouping called Educational Kits, which is fair enough, especially as these include rockets and robots - tasty stuff indeed.
 

iRoomba robot around the house

Speaking as robot fans and collectors, we can’t have enough of ‘em around SMN Towers, though one had to go recently, due to pressure on space. It was an iRoomba robotic vacuum cleaner from US Robotics. A great little device to set in motion and watch, though its cleaning abilities were, should we say: “still in the development phase”! Still, worth having just to be entertained by all the busy whirrings of the little bot. 

Other Academy kits

Back to Academy, and of course this South Korean manufacturer is known for much more than the educational kits. So here are just a couple of examples from the military and aviation side of things to whet your appetite. 

Israeli F-16i

The F-16i ‘Sufa' is Israel’s take on this multinational fighter, and the kit comes with enough stores options to make you wonder how the real thing ever staggers into the air. Plus, there are added items like the long square-section fuselage spine and the twin conformal tanks, which do so much to boost the F-16i’s combat radius. This is one of the biggest F-16 kits around as it’s a 1:32 scale offering, and at that size, the opportunities to add detail are almost endless. The two-seater cockpit alone is a work of art - and Academy supplies two well-sculpted crew figures into the bargain, and you can inspect them minutely under that big subtly-tinted bubble canopy.

K9 Thunder howitzer

The Republic of Korea has a 520,000-strong conscription army (sixth largest in the world) and one of its important artillery pieces is the locally-developed K9 Thunder howitzer. It’s a 47-tonne weapon that can fire a round every five seconds in burst-mode, where three shells are lobbed on different trajectories, the trio timed to hit the same target at the same moment - very clever indeed. The K9 has also been sold to Turkey, which reckons to have some 300 of them in service by the end of 2011.

Neat tracks

Academy’s 1:35 scale K9 shows off the 155 mm gun well, and the whole kit is lovingly produced, especially the intricately detailed tracks and suspension system. Crew figures are included.  

See the K9 Thunder here.

And the F-16i Sufa here.

LEONARDO DA VINCI AUTOMOBILE 'SELF-PROPELLING CART' KIT FROM ITALERI

Mat Irvine inspects

Here is another model in the growing range of Leonardo da Vinci designs, a 1:12 scale (or thereabouts) kit originated by Academy in South Korea, but made and marketed in Europe by the Italian firm Italeri.

The kit models Leonardo’s idea for a mechanical self-propelled cart, which would be, I suppose - if it had ever been built - the first example of a perfectly feasible ‘automobile’, predating Karl Benz’s three-wheeler by some 400 years.

Multi-media parts with motor

The kit is moulded mostly in conventional plastic, though there is, in common with all this manufacturer’s Leonardo kits, a pre-assembled clockwork motor supplied to power the completed model. The components are pre-coloured in various shades of brown, though a coat of paint - wood or tan, or similar - could be applied. However, if you want your cart to work properly, the areas where parts move against others will have to be monitored carefully. The solution for smooth running is to either mask parts so that paint doesn’t get on them in the first place, or to make sure that paint on affected areas is carefully scraped off before final assembly.

Simple but satisfying kit

The self-propelled cart is a simple kit of some 25 plastic components, a couple made of metal, plus the pre-assembled clockwork motor. The scale is a bit problematic, but - assuming the design was intended to be built at full-size - my best estimate is you are looking at about 1:12 scale, even though Leonardo didn't include any seats in his design, which would allow a more accurate scale guesstimate.

The pictures show, top to bottom:

1  The box for Italeri’s version of the Academy Leonardo da Vinci Self Propelled Cart, here prefaced with the word ‘automobile’.

2  Some of the main parts for the Cart.

3  The completed model.

4  A detailed booklet comes with all these kits, giving details of the thinking behind Leonardo’ s various ideas, plus museum and CGI images, and a list of other references.

Thanks to The Hobby Company for the review kit.

See the Cart and other Leonardo devices here.

More about Leonardo da Vinci here.

View Leonardo stuff here.

And some kits here.

LEONARDO DA VINCI LIVES ON WITH THE REVELL ‘AERIAL SCREW’ KIT - A RENAISSANCE-ERA HELICOPTER DESIGN

Mat Irvine inspects an interesting mixed media kit

In the middle of 2010, Scale Model News carried a report on one of the new kits from Italeri, originated by Academy, that explore the technological design marvels from the pen of that Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci. At the time it was said that this literally was a rebirth of interest as you would be getting models from not one, but three different kit companies. Two would use conventional plastic - as does the Academy/Italeri - but Revell planned kits that would use materials that Leonardo would certainly be familiar with - wood, cloth, and cord.

da Vinci designs

Six of the ten da Vinci kits have been issued, and they are not only an intriguing cross-section of his designs and inventions, but certainly look the part in these traditional materials. They are also reasonably easy to build, as both wood and cloth parts are pre-cut and pre-stained.

Aerial Screw kit

The first kit I’m looking at - the rest will follow - is one of Leonardo’s best known designs, the Aerial Screw, or as some would have it (although really incorrectly!) his ‘helicopter’.

Revell provides great details for the build, with everything in five languages, headed (naturally enough) in Italian. You get the layout of the pre-cut wood parts, and the cloth for the ‘sails’; full-colour (well, ‘sepia’ to be more precise) instructions, and a booklet on the thinking behind the design. The Aerial Screw would not have worked in reality, as it was far too heavy, but the principle was correct and is the way modern propellers function.

The pictures show, top to bottom:

1-2  The Aerial Screw model is approximately 1:48 scale. The box has an attractive 'olde worlde' design.

3  The back of the box also shows the other five kits in the first batch. These include a glider and a swing bridge. 

4  Pre-cut thin ply parts (back), packed in a tray to keep them in place; the cloth ‘sails’ (centre foreground), and the booklet, (left foreground). Each kit also has a cloth imprinted with Leonardo’s drawing, and his famous backwards writing (back right).

4  The instructions show that assembly is little different to a conventional plastic kit, except that you use the supplied wood glue to hold parts together, instead of polystyrene cement.

More about Leonardo da Vinci here.

View Leonardo stuff here.

And some kits here.

Thanks to Revell for the review kit. 

ACADEMY ONTOS TANK-KILLER KIT TO 1:35 SCALE

SMN reports
The ROK (Republic of Korea) kit maker Academy is on something of a roll at the moment - company representatives were delighted to collect 2010 Modell des Jahres (Model of the Year) awards at the recent Nuremberg Toy Fair for their quite superb 1:35 scale Merkava tank and 1:72 scale M977 cargo truck.

And now Academy has a new-release 1:35 kit of the somewhat less-known M50A1 Ontos tank-killer. This was a small tracked vehicle in service from 1959-1965, and used with some success in the Vietnam War, by the US Marine Corps for fire support. Armament was a central machine gun, surrounded by six 106 mm (4.2 in) recoilless rifles, three on each side. Like all weapon systems, the Ontos (from a Greek word meaning ‘thing’) had some weaknesses, not least being the fact that the crew had to reload the rifles from outside, leaving themselves vulnerable to enemy fire. Still, the Ontos was light enough to be airlifted by cargo planes and CH-53 helicopters, making it a highly mobile weapon.

Academy’s kit is loaded with detail - a pair of crew figures are included, plus rounds of ammunition ready for loading. As you might expect, photo-etched parts are supplied, including light guards and engine exhaust protective mesh. Decals are nicely printed and the wide tracks are particularly handsome, with the unique tread pattern captured nicely.

As you can see from the Ontos on display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps (bottom pic), a ‘used’ example looks very different from the ‘factory-fresh’ Academy offering, so there’s plenty of room in this kit for detailing, weathering, damaging, and kit-bashing in general. All in all, an unusual and interesting addition to any 1:35 scale AFV collection.

Pictures courtesy Academy, US Marine Corps.

Visit the USMC Museum here.

The Ontos will be available from model stores and online suppliers shortly. Meantime there’s a range of Academy kits at Amazon that include such tasty items as the 1/35 M1A1 Abrams "Iraq 2003"

F-22 RAPTOR FIRST FLIGHT

Today’s the day in 1997 that the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor made its first flight, marking the start of a program that’s been been a bit of a mixed bag, with sky-high costs and politics playing major parts in the aircraft’s development. Technically it’s a different story, with the F-22 being second to none as the most effective combat aircraft in the skies.

Apart from its radar-resistant stealth design, the F-22’s main technical advance has been the ability to supercruise - that is, fly at supersonic speeds up to about Mach 1.7, without needing fuel-hungry afterburners.

In the model world, one of the best F-22s available is the Academy 1:48 scale kit, released earlier this year. It’s better (though more expensive) than the Italeri version to the same scale, and features crisply-moulded parts, neat panel detail, clear and smoked options for the canopy, a full range of missile, bomb and fuel-tank ordnance, plus - a nice touch - separate parts for the engine thrust-vectoring petals. The decals are extremely well printed, and have been supplied by the excellent specialist company, Cartograf.

When assembled, the 196-part Academy F-22 is quite a biggie for a single-seater, with a wingspan that scales out to more than 280 mm (11 in). It’s available through model stores, and online suppliers such as Amazon here.

The pictures show (top to bottom):
1 Academy 1:48 kit box.
2 Neatly moulded cockpit tub.
3 F-22 in flight, showing ‘shock diamonds’ in the engine efflux.
4 An F-22 flying at transonic speed through damp air, showing pressure patterns around the airframe.

WORKHORSE TWIN-ROTOR IN SIGHT OF HALF A CENTURY OF SERVICE

The Boeing CH-46 reaches 47 years since its first flight next month, and by the time the last ones are retired from US Marine Corps service in 2014, the type will have been flying for 52 years! Nicknamed the ‘bullfrog’ or plain ‘phrog’, the assault support helicopter, initially developed by Piasecki-Vertol, has achieved a reputation for toughness and reliability in service.

Various kits have been made, including those of Airfix, Fujimi and Hobbycraft, but far and away the best available today is the 1:48 scale Academy kit. It’s beautifully presented, with a choice of markings that include the US Navy Stars-and-Stripes Sea Knight version shown above. Detail inside and out is top-class - the only thing missing is a bunch of heavily armed troops, ready to walk up the tail ramp (bottom picture). But that’s no criticism, more of a me-want item for a future release.

Academy’s CH/HH-46 would look good in any helo collection - paired with a same-scale twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook, the result would be outstanding.

Visit Academy here for details. The kit is on offer at the moment from online supplier Model Hobbies here, marked down to £35.98 ($59.33).

BIGGEST HORNET KIT YET - WELL ACTUALLY, IT’S THE 1:1 SCALE REAL THING

Academy’s neat 1:72 scale Boeing F/A-18 Hornet (and its hugely bigger 1:32 scale cousin, shown top above) is an example of ongoing product improvement, with extra parts and excellent third-party Cartograf decals. For anyone who has assembled one of these bigger Hornet kits, the time-lapse video above is a reminder of the complexities of putting together the real thing.

Like all big aircraft projects, construction and assembly of the Hornet is an international business, with parts big and small arriving at the assembly hall from thousands of separate suppliers. The final flying machine is a triumph of systems integration.

However, this approach doesn’t always work the first time. For example, on the much-delayed Dreamliner passenger jet, Boeing has had real problems with the supply chain - among other issues, thousands of fasteners had to be replaced. Still, Boeing reckons most of these problems are now solved, and the company aims to have the new jet taking off on its maiden flight later this year.

Visit Academy here, and the Boeing company here.

The video is via Live Leak, here.

THIRD QUARTER KIT QUARTET FROM ACADEMY

South Korea’s Academy model kits are on a roll this year, so SMN has no qualms about another post. Academy’s releases for the third quarter - July to September 2009 - show a mix of subjects and kit extras. From the top then -

The ever-popular F-15E Eagle is presented in improved form, with a neat set of Iraqi Freedom ‘nose art’ markings made by the respected Cartograf specialist decal-maker from Italy. Canopy and dorsal air brake of the 1:48 scale model can be posed open or shut, there’s a full set of weapons to hang under the wings.

Matching the improved status of the F-15E in a smaller scale is the 1:72 F/A-18D Hornet. Once again, Cartograf has been commissioned to produce a very fine decal set, and many kit parts are new or polished up. It’s not the world’s prettiest jet, especially in two-seater form, but the highly successful Hornet should be in any modern jet collection - and this one should make up into a goodie.

For marine enthusiasts, Academy have a 1:350 scale World War II Admiral Graf Spee pocket battleship. As with the aircraft, the Graf Spee has been given new and improved parts, and the biggish scale will make it an impressive piece of naval history when displayed on a shelf.

There’s a final aircraft to bring this roundup to a close, with another German veteran from World War II, the 1:48 scale Messerschmitt Bf-109E-3. The box art hasn’t been finalised yet, so here we show a contemporary photo that shows off the splayed legs of the 109’s narrow-track main undercarriage. Like the other Academy releases here, the 109 comes with various new parts.

It’s great to see kit manufacturers refining their kits like this - constant upgrading of parts, and using outside decal sources really shows that companies like Academy care about their clients, which in this case is us modellers. It’s good to be appreciated!

Academy Q3 models will be available through model stores and online suppliers.

KING OF FIGHTERS - KING OF KITS?

The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is undoubtedly the world’s leading air superiority fighter, but it’s also one that’s been plagued with political and technical issues. The price - nearly $145 million USD per copy - makes it a target for cost-cutting senators, and technical points abound, not least of which are questions about the stealth coatings. On at least one occasion, a section has peeled away from the fuselage, to be sucked into an engine intake.

Still, that’s the bad news - the rest is good, insofar as the F-22 is clearly ahead of anything else in the sky and packs a deadly range of weapons in its load bays. Rather than hanging from the wings, missiles and bombs are stored out of sight, therefore being invisible to enemy radars.

And what about models? Probably the best available - and the only model claimed to be a production-standard aircraft - is the 1:48 scale release from the Republic of Korea’s Academy. This F-22 is certainly one for keen plastic kit enthusiasts, as what appears to be a relatively simple airframe design breaks down into no less than 275 separate parts, though many of these are for the very full weapons fit. Academy has packed in a wealth of detail - cockpit dials and equipment seem to be all present, as is the detailed landing gear, separate flaps, and positionable elevators.

And there’s a really nice feature for the touch-sensitive among us - Academy has gone to town on the surface finish, so the particular textures of the stealth panels are there for you to feel with your fingertips. It puts a premium on painting though - spray on light coatings, otherwise those textures could easily be lost.

The Academy Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is available through model stores and online suppliers, including eHobbies, here.