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Grumman OV-1C Mohawk

131st Surveillance Airplane Company, United States Army

Phu Bai, Vietnam, 1966

 

Hasegawa 1/72 kit

Wolfpack decals

Hataka A065 US Army Olive Drab acrylic paint

 

 

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I found this photo in the Squadron/Signal In Action book on the Mohawk. Then realised that I had the decals for this aircraft on a Wolfpack sheet that I had bought for something else (an F-35A). So off to the attic I went to look for the kit :

 

 

Scan Mohawk 2

 

The Hasegawa Mohawk kit is old by anybody’s standards. I think this one had been in the stash for at least 35 years, and I remember building the Frog issue of this kit around the late 1960s.

 

Cockpit detail was as basic as it gets but I used the supplied centre console and ejection seats to build something more representative. The kit is the OV-1B version with the large SLAR pod which was deleted (as it happens it would have been very useful to have put ballast in because without it I needed a ton of weight in the nose).

The fit of the wing parts was diabolical and needed lots and lots of Milliput and scribing to restore it to something acceptable. In contrast, the tailplane and triple fins were good and fitted well, though they are heavy and hence the nose weight issue. The OV-1B version in the kit does not have airbrakes so these had to be scribed into the fuselage. The undercarriage and doors needed a fair amount of work to add detail. I also cut off the propeller blades and refitted them in the feathered position as all Mohawks seem to be left in this configuration on the ground. This sounds simple, but it wasn’t! The small spinners come in two parts which are nowhere near the same diameter, and each blade needed refining and pinning before re-attaching. All good fun though.

 

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Yowzah! You have really done a magnificent job updating that old Hasegawa kit. Kinda sorry I sold both of mine off a while back. Maybe someday we will see a new-tool.

Mike

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