Vertol Hkp 4B
1 Helicopter Division, Swedish Navy, 1986
If anyone reading this was at the 1986 Middle Wallop air show, as I was, I’m sure you will remember these Swedish helicopters as stars of the show and rare beasts indeed in the UK.
It sometimes takes a while for all the elements to come together to built a model and for me it was the recent availability of the Swedish camo colours from Hataka that completed the set. I have had the ‘Flying Colours / Aerodecals’ sheet for a long long time, kept in the equally old Hobbycraft Vertol 107 kit box waiting to go.
If you like masking, then this is the model for you. If you don’t, sheer perseverance will get you there in the end – or at least that’s how it was for me. I thought the rotor blade camo might be the easy bit, but having to do it all 6 times extended the timescale beyond what I wanted – you can only do so much masking at a time.
The Hataka paints airbrushed beautifully and I would recommend them. Next time though I think I would spray the two greens and hand brush the brown and black to keep masking to a reasonable level.