Jabba

Ah the good old Viking. A good start on the cockpit.

A different idea having the aircraft in the air with the U/C down. I really like all the detail work that you have put into the engines, U/C and their bays. With the amount of work that would have been needed in the weapons bay I can see why you went with a detail set.

Certainly bright. Well done with the application of the fuselage stripe, good enough for government work.

Certainly a different colour scheme with the black contrasting with the Orange. As a side remark all aircraft tyres that I have worked on had those Yellow creep marks which are nearly always missed by modeller (me included), so well done for adding them.

Well done, and as others have already said a very colourful scheme.

They are a cover for sensors in the radome.

Fuselage now glued together apart from the nose and tail ending parts. I will glue the tail ending part and then place all other parts into their respective places so that I cab determine how much weight is required before gluing on the nose cone. In the last photo you can see how much can be seen there, so I think that after I have fitted the windscreen it will be painted over and the decal sheet windows used.

Thanks again Craig. Getting there slowly. A few more parts added, although the rear ramp at the moment is not glued but the actuators are to the fuselage. I had pre-painted the bases of the aerials and anti-col lights, but guess who put the lighter grey painted one on the rear of the aft pylon. A bit more to add, and remove (masking) before I start on the gluing of the rotors experiment.

A little bit of weathering has been carried out, mainly to the rear of the engines and around some of the panel lines. I will apply some sand dusting powder at a later dates when a few more bits are added. I have also started to add the smaller parts, such as the wheels and covers around the engines. A few more will be added tonight. I have also painted up and applied the decals to the rotor blades and heads. The colour stripes fitted to these components were a little testing as some of them broke before I even got them off the backing sheet. Still I do think that the effort was worth it as you can see in the last photo. MOre later.

A good solid start, like the weapons bay work, very realistic.

Coming along nicely. Some very good work on the ejection seat and instrument panel. I like the idea of the bits of black on the paint scheme, breaks up the grey a little.

Like you I think that Roden are trying to simulate the blow in doors on the cowling with these blocks being the metal in between these said doors, and made a really bad job of it. So these will be coming off in the future to make a totally smooth cowling.

I have got some more parts glued together, and to be honest I am not that overjoyed with this kit especially with what you get for the price that was paid. The flight deck is together, but I think that I will paint this all black, use it for structural integrity and use the widows from the Caracal decal sheet. I am also at a loss as to what are the rectangular lumps that are at the front of the engines. Unless anyone else knows if they do exist they will be removed when it comes to filling and sanding. I am also not sure if I have got the front of the engines correct as there is not spline so it can be lined up. More to come in the next week or so.

Thanks kindly. I have now applied over a couple of days the majority of the stencils. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be in that the decals on the sheet are lined up from to back of the helicopter meaning that I could doe several decals at once to one side or the other rather than searching the whole decal sheet for the decals that I wanted. A well done to Academy on that point. The stencils that I have not applied at the moment are ones that are applied to the doors and a few places like that so they can be applied later. I have started to paint the blades and rotor heads, so should get them finished in a day or so. I am now looking into the add on parts such as aerials and lights to see what colours are needed for them. So onwards and upwards.

That basic camo scheme comes with the Hasegawa kit. If that is not to your liking you could try Milverse a decal company from Singapore. I am not sure if the Saudi GR4 equivalent aircraft were painted in this scheme or went straight to Grey after their update, as I think that the aircraft in the photo is a GR1.