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Showing results for tags 'Italeri / Rotorcraft 1/72'.
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Whirlwind HAS.7 - 824 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Centaur 1963. This is the Italeri H-19 kit with the Rotorcraft conversion to make a Whirlwind HAS7. This was a far more involved conversion than I was expecting - I sort of had the idea that the Whirlwind 7 was the same as a Sikorsky H-19 with a few changes here and there - wrong! The model has more resin than plastic. The whole tail boom is resin (though you could use the kit supplied version if you could be bothered to remove some detail), and the whole lower fuselage below the floor line is also resin. This was because the Mk7 had the facility to carry a torpedo semi-enclosed in the lower fuselage, which required the floor line to be raised as well as a new under-fuselage profile. The resin fitted pretty well overall. There was much PE provided also. The kit moulded-in engine cooling vents all had to go and were replaced with PE, as well as various footsteps, handholds, windscreen wipers, etc. A replacement white metal undercarriage is also provided - much needed because with all that resin at the back a fair old dose of lead was needed in the nose to keep it on its wheels. I would have liked the conversion kit instructions to have been much clearer, though. In particular, I only discovered fairly late on that I needed to remove some windscreen framing from the transparencies. I suppose I should have done a bit more research myself, then I wouldn't have been in that position! Kit decals were good - lots of choice. I was always going to do a yellow/oxford blue scheme and didn't want the kit provided example so went for an 824 NAS example from the early 60s. As usual, and enjoyable experience.
