Hasegawa 1/48 Seaking Aew Mk.2a

[Greg B]

Hasegawa announced that they would finally be releasing a Westland built example of their venerable SH-3 Seaking kit early in 2009.

In December it hit the shops in the Far east and I was lucky enough to find a copy in Hong Kong in early January. The Seaking is a reasonably well detailed moulding with recessed panel lines but lacks interior detail compared to their more modern releases. It has plenty of scope for any modeller, however it is let down by its lack of interior details, aft of the cockpit is bare.

Moulded in their usual grey plastic, the additional lumps and bumps are not provided as first announced in Resin and White metal but in injection moulded plastic on a number of new sprues, this should guarantee that Hasegawa will go through the various Westland built Marks and a HAR.3 has already been announced for release later in the year. The instruction leaflet is in Hasegawa's usual clear style and has two side views of the aircraft which clearly show which lumps and bumps have to be removed from the existing fuselages to make it correct for the Westland airframe. This is well thought out and makes life a lot easier for the modeller.

Image copyright of www.scale-rotors.com

Sprue S contains a new six bladed tail rotor and the lightly different tail assembly together with the correctly shortened stabilising tailplane. Sprue V contains the parts for the Thales searchwater radar and radome. A pertinent point is that the Radome is in fact inflatable on the real thing and is deflated to provide ground clearance. The plastic is moulded in its inflated state and is therefore not correct. The limitations of the plastic moulding process no doubt demanded this, hopefully one of the aftermarket companies will pick this up:

Sprue T provides the correct shorter Sponson's for the Westland model with a nicely moulded rendition of the emergency ditching floats housing moulded into the side together with the Searchwater radar radome that is mounted on top of the fuselage:

Sprue Y provides the main meat of the Westland differences including all of the lumps and bumps for the Orange Crop ECM system, various blade antenna, the strakes that are mounted on the upper port side of the tailboom and importantly the different port engine cover and APU bump which is a Westland built machine feature:

Other additions are a new sprue containing an extra 2 bubble type windows which is correct for type.

The decal sheet provides markings for:

"180", 849 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1988

"88", Royal Navy, 1982

Overall it is a welcome edition to the Hasegawa 1/48 Helicopter line, however with the original kit released in the late 80's it has taken a very, very long time for Hasegawa to grace us with a Westland built example. Unfortunately, Hasegawa's business model of getting the most out of moulds with multiple "Special Editions" with minor decal sheet changes is not particularly inspiring for the consumer, in this case various aftermarket accessories for Westland built machines have been available for years. With the recent price hikes and the lack of interior detail I would be reticent to pay UK prices for this limited edition kit and would in fact invest in a normal moulding which can be found reasonably cheaply and add either the Airwaves or Flightpath conversion sets to make a Westland built airframe. The Flightpath set also contains an etched brass interior for the cabin behind the cockpit which makes up for what is lacking in the kit.

Hasegawa should be applauded for finally producing a Westland built machine, but the special edition status and sheer time it has taken them for additional sprues to be added is disappointing.

Recommended if you really must have one in your collection, or if you only build out of the box.

Greg B

[iain.. ipms north somerset]

hi all

i totaly agree ..

got the AEW mk2 last week form my local model shop..in weston s mare

got home to open the box and was quite dissapointed ... just a few new sprews ..

nothing inide the airframe apart from basic cockpit detail

and for £50 ! ..

i feel ripped off ....

and will not be going down this road again....

would be nice for trumpeter to have a shot that the sea king ....

iain

Edited February 8, 2010 by iain.. ipms north somerset

[Col.]

Having added this kit to the stash today I agree with your assessment of it Greg; what is provided is good but there should be more for the money.

The new sprue for the Searchwater radar features a lovely rendition of the dome-head rivets but sadly the rest of the airframe lack this or any attempt of the various overlapping panels found on the real machine. As you mention the radome moulded as an inflated unit only and the lack of any cabin detail is disappointing but I would also add the fact that of the 11 parts on the etched metal fret 7 are marked as not applicable to this version and the two crew seats have small sink marks on the lower cushions and a most unrealistic attempt at seat-belts moulded on them. This, a lack of crew figures, the sparse main cabin and crew access doors being moulded shut are my main observations so far and that's before I've opened the bags.

My opinion of the kit may improve once I start to build but for the moment I can say that while glad the opportunity now exists to build a 48th scale Westland-built Sea King AEW2 it comes at a high price and provides only the basics for further detail.

Flightpath do a detail set for the Hasegawa kit that will no doubt assist and although I'm not sure exactly what this covers it comes in at less than £10 so I'll add this to the box in the near future while looking for useful references online and trying to find where my copy of the Aeroguide title on the HAS.3 has gone.

[Radpoe Spitfire]

Price is a quite steep, but I undestand this is due to currency exchange values, hopefully Revell will do a Re-release at a fraction of the cost. slightly off topic can anyone confirm if this kit contains both standard and extended sponsons as I'd like to model Aeroventure's Mk6 XV677.

[stalal]

i m looking to buy this kit. The thing that stopped me was the price.

For those who have this kit, is it worthwhile getting it? I usually make kits out of the box.

From the review, it looks like it will be waste of money. What is your opinion?

Thanks

Sohaib

Edited June 28, 2011 by stalal

[jamboseven]

Try Scoonie Hobbies in Kirkcaldy Scotland.

They may still have some left. I bought mine for £30 a few weeks back

They have a few other Hasegawa kits at decent prices as well.

simon

[stalal]

Looking at the following link, it seems the cockpit detail is too sketchy.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10098638z/70/1

Its disappointing with Hasegawa kits. To begin with, the price is so high that it does not leave any budget for after market. What you get in the box is too basic a kit to demand such a price.

I still want to build it as i have never built a helicopter model.