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Best 1/72 UH-60 Black Hawk?


KRK4m

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Trying to build a US UH-60A from Desert Storm I'm unable to find any comparison (or even a single review) of various 1/72 Black Hawk kits avilable on the market.

What are your opinions? Have you ever compared the UH-60A by Hasegawa, Fujimi, Revell, Hobbycraft, Italeri/Tamiya and HobbyBoss?

Is really the 1970s vintage Hasegawa still the best 1/72 option on the market?

Cheers

Michael

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For me it's 50/50 between Italeri and Hasegawa, I'm not expert but wasted time comparing both kits against SOAR birds when OFP Resistance received the BAS Black Hawks addons and I entered in that territory to make at least a DAP conversion and a Pave Hawk, both have something that the other kit doesn't so you either pick the one with the most accurate fuselage and slap the good parts of the other kit on it

 

Italeri got reboxed by Revell and Tamiya, once had all the Revell reboxes but as for now the only one left in my stash is the Desert Hawk, for what I'm aware of Revell never modified or added some extra parts like they did Italeri AB-212 and AB-412

Fujimi and Hobbyboss have a slender nose and do look funny

Hobbycraft is either their own abomination copy of Hasegawa's moulds or something else which should be avoided

 

Luigi

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I agree with Luigi, for what it's worth. I have the UH-60A, HH-60D, MH-60E, and SH-60G, and they all look very nice, nicer that the Fujimi kits, which  I also have. I'm not a rotary-wing authority, but I seem to recall the Hasegawa kits getting good kit reviews. I would think, though, that being older releases they would not have some of the lumps and warts that have appeared during the various upgrade cycles. You might try looking at the rotary wing modeling  website I have linked below to see what they say. I'm sure one of our resident authorities will be along shortly to give you a more definitive answer. Sorry!

Mike

 

http://www.scale-rotors.com/

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I am also far from being a Hawk authority, but don’t think Revell ever had a kit of their own - they reboxed the Fujimi when they briefly cooperated with Fujimi in the mid/late 80s, and later it should be Italeri. In 1/100, they had the ACE kits also reboxed by AccMin. As for reviews, certainly there was an Airfix mag of 1985 having Hawk reviews, might have been January (or possibly December). @Richard Humm will likely be able to support; not sure if Aeroflight.UK has content listings, but might be worth a try. 

Hobbycraft with 99.9 probability is a copy of either Hase or Fujimi.

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Again, I am no authority but I got a reasonable result (or at least one that satisfied me) some years ago when making an Australian S-70 by kit-bashing the Hasegawa and Italeri kits together and using the best from each. 

 

If I recall correctly, I fitted the Italeri interior inside the Hasegawa fuselage (Italeri has a cabin roof, Hasegawa doesn't), with the Italeri vertical tail and exhaust shrouds, plus whichever sundry elements looked best from each kit.

 

Just a thought...

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IIRC Hasegawa's only faults are plain (with no ribs) tailplane and lack of cabin roof.

According to Scalemates the Hobbycraft kit is a rebox of earlier IDEA (neither Hasegawa nor Fujimi) one.

Nevertheless thank you for your interest - I must examine the Italeri/Revell one closer.

Cheers

Michael

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11 hours ago, tempestfan said:

I am also far from being a Hawk authority, but don’t think Revell ever had a kit of their own - they reboxed the Fujimi when they briefly cooperated with Fujimi in the mid/late 80s, and later it should be Italeri. In 1/100, they had the ACE kits also reboxed by AccMin. As for reviews, certainly there was an Airfix mag of 1985 having Hawk reviews, might have been January (or possibly December). @Richard Humm will likely be able to support; not sure if Aeroflight.UK has content listings, but might be worth a try. 

Hobbycraft with 99.9 probability is a copy of either Hase or Fujimi.

I think you're thinking of the September 1985 Airfix Magazine, Claus. That has a six and a bit page article on the real H-60 series (two pages of which are a Pilot Press cutaway of the SH-60B probably originally published in Air International) and brief reviews of the Hasegawa UH-60A and SH-60B.

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As a hot tip, stay FAR AWAY from the Hobby boss kit... I barely looks like a UH-60. I bought it at a craft store for not much, and that was too much. decidedly not worth it. I did throw it together for a joke, and it is horrid.

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12 hours ago, Richard Humm said:

I think you're thinking of the September 1985 Airfix Magazine, Claus. That has a six and a bit page article on the real H-60 series (two pages of which are a Pilot Press cutaway of the SH-60B probably originally published in Air International) and brief reviews of the Hasegawa UH-60A and SH-60B.

That‘s the one Richard. Memory says the cover has a Medevac bird flying into the camera. 

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  • 5 months later...

And,

 

I will add that the Italeri cabin seats (the support struts positions) are more correct than the Hasegawa ones.  The Hasegawa seats "look" good but the support struts are vertical, when they should be at 45° angles.

 

WARDOG

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On 12/18/2018 at 2:59 PM, tempestfan said:

Idea was a Korean copycat organisation who tooled some original kits for Hobbycraft, but the Hawk is with almost certainty a clone.

I can confirm the Hobbycraft kit is a mediocre copy of the Hasegawa - all the usual trademarks: slightly different sprue layout, softer detailing, and (based on dry fit of major components) poor fit.

 

From in-box comparisons I'd agree with the previous assessments that Italeri (or Revell, Tamiya, or Testors reboxes) or Hasegawa are comparable. In general the Hasegawa kit doesn't seem to have been updated as well so if you're going for a modern bird that may give Italeri the edge (though you may still need aftermarket).

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REALLY wish SOMEBODY would make resin updates for MEDEVAC birds and corrected cockpits (where are the collectives?) for the Hasegawa 72nd kits!

 

WARDOG

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AFAIK, only one version of the Italeri kit has the Hover IR Suppression System (HIRSS) which is almost universal in the Blackhawk fleet.  The aftermarket manufacturer Armycast does resin versions of them, unfortunately with intake covers molded on.

 

Regards,

Murph 

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The Italeri kit has one problem but an hard one. Those sidewindows on the nose just doesn't fit. They are too small.

 

I think one need one Italeri and one Hasegawa kit to get one Black Hawk...

 

Cheers / André

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10 hours ago, Andre B said:

I think one need one Italeri and one Hasegawa kit to get one Black Hawk...

Yep, that's what I did: insert the Italeri interior into the Hasegawa fuselage, adding Italeri HIRSS exhausts and tail unit.

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On 6/6/2019 at 6:23 PM, Murph said:

AFAIK, only one version of the Italeri kit has the Hover IR Suppression System (HIRSS) which is almost universal in the Blackhawk fleet.  The aftermarket manufacturer Armycast does resin versions of them, unfortunately with intake covers molded on.

 

Regards,

Murph 

Which one?

 

Cheers / André

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11 hours ago, Andre B said:

Which one?

 

Cheers / André

André

  I'm going on memory here, but it had desert markings (tan paint scheme), and may have been labeled as a "Desert Hawk".

 

Regards,

Murph

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4 hours ago, Murph said:

I'm going on memory here, but it had desert markings (tan paint scheme), and may have been labeled as a "Desert Hawk".

 

Regards,

Murph

Yep, the 'Desert Hawk' boxing has HIRSS exhausts for sure

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5 hours ago, Murph said:

André

  I'm going on memory here, but it had desert markings (tan paint scheme), and may have been labeled as a "Desert Hawk".

 

Regards,

Murph

Yes, I noticed that on my own kits. I have three unfinished kits because those bad clear parts in the nose... 😞

 

Cheers / André

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On 12/18/2018 at 11:05 AM, KRK4m said:

I'm unable to find any comparison (or even a single review) of various 1/72 Black Hawk kits avilable on the market.

I hope these can be helpful:

https://modelingmadness.com/scott/mod/fujimi/hh60dpreview.htm

https://modelingmadness.com/review/mod/kuijpersh60jpreview.htm (it's a Seahawk but hopefully still useful)

https://modelingmadness.com/review/mod/previews/hobbyboss/87216.htm

https://modelingmadness.com/scott/mod/previews/hobbyboss/87231.htm

 

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