Airfix Westland Lynx HMA8/MK.88A/Mk.90B (A10107A) 1:48

[Mike]

Westland Lynx HMA8/MK.88A/Mk.90B (A10107A)

1:48 Airfix

 

 

The Lynx began life as a European take on the almost ubiquitous American UH-1, and a replacement for the ageing Westland Wasp, but grew somewhat into a flexible and adaptable aircraft, utilising new technologies and having light weight honey comb structure in its rotor blades, cutting down on the rotating mass, which is a common goal in many spheres of engineering, not just aviation. Soon after its maiden flight it started showing its qualities, and broke the world speed record for a helicopter, hitting just short of the 200mph figure.  French collaboration resulted in Aerospatiale gaining a 30% share of the workload, but French Army orders were cancelled even before the first prototype flew, although the UK still bought Gazelles and Pumas as their part of the agreement, and the French Navy were the first to receive theirs.  Interestingly, a specially modified ex-demonstrator, G-LYNX set another speed record of 249mph in 1986, which still stands at time of writing.

 

As with most aircraft in service, shortcomings were addressed, and the Naval version with the designation Lynx HMA.X progressed over the years up to HMA.8, with four additional sub-mods coming on-stream over the years, while

The Mk.88 was the German specific variant, and the Mk.90 the Danish variant that was upgraded from A through B after improvement to Super Lynx standards.  The oddly shaped but incredibly efficient BERP rotor blades, improved GEM engines and gearbox were introduced in the mid-80s, and after the withdrawal of the original Lynxes from service in the late 2010s, the Wildcat replaced it, based on the Super Lynx 300 and bearing a distinct family resemblance to its predecessor, although it is a substantial improvement on the original, with its angular tail boom being the quickest way to tell the difference at a glance.  Only 28 were ordered for the Navy, but as they seem to offer much improved availability over its predecessor, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

 

 

The Kit

The kit arrives in a sturdy red Airfix box with a digital painting of the British variant on the front. Inside is a single bag containing five sprues of Airfix’s familiar pale grey styrene, with the clear parts bagged separately inside. A large decal sheet, a thick instruction booklet and three folded A3 painting and decaling diagrams finish off the package.  The detail is just as good as when first released back in 2012, which doesn’t seem a full decade ago, but maths like that is pretty easy, even for me.  Looking across the sprues, you can still see multiple layers of strengthening plates, very fine raised rivets, and recessed panel lines that should please most modellers. The detail extends to the interior, which has lots of really crisp quilted sound insulation provided. This was one of the reinvigorated Airfix’s early ‘special’ kits, and the care that has been lavished upon it shows almost everywhere you look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with a choice of three mission profiles, the Counter Piracy and Air Sea Rescue options allowing you to use all three decal options, while the Anti-Surface Warfare option is only suitable for the British Naval decals.  There is another choice available, which is the orientation of the passenger seats in the centre of the aft area.  There is also the option of a winch that extends through the side door, plus two different seat layouts for the former option, equipment boxes for the British Naval option, and an additional seat in the passenger area for the two overseas decal options.  Throughout the instructions you will be shown A, B or C in various combinations, depending on which option that particular step pertains to.  Initially that simply relates to the 1mm holes you need to drill in the floor panel, but more on that later.

 

The pilot and co-pilots seats give you another choice of whether you want armoured seats of the anti-surface warfare variant, or the more traditional type for the other two roles. For the standard type, they build up with separate seat cushions, mounting section, and moulded in belts. For the armoured “in-theatre” variety, a tub is built up from two interlocking parts, into which the seat cushions are placed, with the whole assembly fitted to the standard mounting frame. Separate collective and cyclic sticks are provided for the cockpit, and two instrument panels are supplied for the battle-ready decal choice and the other two choices, with different layouts and decals for each option. More decals are provided for the central console and other panels, to correspond with your choice of seats and decals.

 

 

A C-shaped bulkhead separates the pilots from the rear crew, and the interior walls all get very nicely rendered quilted sound insulation panels. The optional equipment is inserted into the pre-drilled holes under the hoop if appropriate, then a trio of jump seats locate against the rear bulkhead, and the aforementioned passenger seats mount back-to-back in the centre of the rear cab in either orientation, again depending on your choice of decals. The seats have moulded in, but separated tubular legs, which is nice to see, although the seats look a little slab-like and uncomfortable for the passengers.

 

 

By this stage of the build, and with the addition of the internal roof and side panels, the cockpit and crew area form a self-contained unit, which is then slipped inside the fuselage halves after some holes are drilled and the knee-height windows are installed in the cockpit, and the holes are drilled in the rear of both halves to accommodate the IR turret under the boom, along with another choice of other sensors and antennae. This is an intelligent method of constructing the cockpit, as it requires no alignment of sections inside the fuselage halves – it is simply installed and closed up, with the side-covers glued over the tops of the doors on both sides. The engine cowling is installed next, with a couple of holes drilled in the undulating cowling part before they are joined, allowing a couple of small parts to be inserted in the sides. The simple exhaust pipes make up from two parts each, and are inserted into the outlet panels from outside, deflecting the exhaust around 90^o from the direction of flight.  This area is then completed by the addition of the forward cowling and other fairings, which has the mounting hole for the main rotor moulded in.

 

At this stage the fuselage has no underside to speak of, and this is supplied as a separate insert, due to the sheer quantity of detail that is moulded into the area, from tiny rivets to appliqué panels, all of which would have been impossible if moulded with the rest of the fuselage. Firstly, the twin winglets are made up from top and bottom half, and are slipped into position at an angle then flattened out before being glued into place, passing through the fuselage under the floor and covered by the fuselage lower surface.  The underside part is well supported so should fit well, although as always, some test fitting and fettling of the join would be advisable before committing to glue. The nose is assembled from an optional cut-away top, underside with circular radome bulge, and two side panels to achieve a combination of shape and detail, with the upper nose receiving the electro-optical sensor turret that is made from four parts that if you are sparing with the glue, can be left to rotate in at least one direction, but if you’re a bit crafty, you could attach the turret before enclosing the nose with some scratch-built adaptations, allowing it to rotate in both axes.  Another group of sensors is glued to the front of the nose, depending on which version you are making, then the whole nose is joined to the fuselage, secured on a stepped edge that should give some room for fettling to make a better fit.

 

The large sliding doors are next, and depending on your option, you’ll use a different door with the same crystal-clear glazing part, and scrap diagrams show how the doors should look in both open and closed positions. Both doors have a small section of the corner removed to accommodate complete opening without baulking the winglets behind.

 

The tail boom is another well-detailed assembly, so take care when aligning the seams to minimise sanding once cured – it would be a shame to lose all that lovely detail. If you are folding the tail, it has a small bulkhead in the rear, and a couple of small holes are needed if you plan to model your Lynx with the blades folded for storage, leaving the tail to be made later.  For the aircraft ready for flight a separate tail with fin moulded-in is used, then the holes are still drilled if folding the blades, and a spine part is inserted into a keyed space, after which it is a straight fit to the stepped edge at the rear of the fuselage.  The Naval Lynx has wheels rather than skids, and the main gear is made of a straight strut with moulded-in scissor-links, a separate hub and tyre, and these are trapped in the winglets by adding the tip fairings, positioning the wheels along the line of flight or at 45^o to the direction of travel.

 

Now comes the final fit and finish of the sensor suites and all the delicate parts that modellers so often knock off. You will need your wits about you to ensure that it all goes smoothly, and it might be an idea to make some notes on the instructions before you start, in order to reduce the likelihood of getting it wrong.  As well as all the blade aerials, antennae and other sensors peculiar to each decal option, there is also the nose wheel, which is built on a shorter strut with twin hubs and tyres, the latter having a slight flat-spot at the bottom.

 

The British option has four anti-submarine torpedoes made up from halves with separate tail fins and individual forward vanes, while the two depth charges have two-part cylindrical bodies, flat nose, tapered fins and a circular fin at the very rear.  There are a pair of mounts made up for the torpedoes or depth charges against the fuselage, with another pair sitting outboard of those, meaning the crew have to dismount through the side door over the weapons.  That should be fun if it’s wet.  If you’re not using the weapons fit, there is the option for a door-mounted machine gun made up from a substantial number of parts, including a big ammo box and feed.  It is attached to the side of the fuselage on a flat platform.  The optional winch attaches to the other door in the hole you drilled at outset.

 

The main glazing is shown added after all the fiddly bits, which might be unwise, and that has a few additional parts to detail the inside.  The cockpit side doors are made entirely from clear styrene, and would benefit from painting inside before installation to prevent the exterior colour showing through the glazing, and to provide a matt interior finish.  A small forest of blade antennae is fixed to the nose along with the windscreen wipers, then a representation of the mesh intake covers are added to each side of the forward cowling just aft of the main rotor, which is next on the list of things to build.

 

The essential rotors are added last, and here you have the option to model them deployed for flight, or folded for storage. The main rotor-head is common, as are the blade cuffs, but the blades are assembled differently for each option. The blades are suitably thin, with nice attachment bolt detail, and that unusual looking BERP tip section with the slight downward kink at the very tip. There is no droop moulded into the blades, but the real things don’t droop because of their composite nature unless they’re tied down, so that is correct. A set of blade props are included with locating points on the fuselage for the folded option, which have the blades set at the appropriate angle to the shafts, and a set of diagrams showing how they fit into these yellow painted retainers. The rotor-head is based on a small circular part, and it looks like it’s possible to leave the rotors loose for transport, although a rotor that can actually turn will need a little modification to the kit parts. The tail head and stabilising fin on the tail are separate parts, and to this the composite tail rotor is fixed, which is made from the main part with moulded in blades, and a raised crown that glues into the open front of the hub.  The folded tail is built from a pair of halves with a bulkhead at the front, then follows the same process as the deployed blades, including the wire bumper underneath, but fixes to the aircraft folded forward by a straight hinge piece.  There is a slight glitch in the instructions mentioning that the fin can be attached to the boom in the flight configuration, but it could still apply if you’ve changed your mind since gluing the folded boom to the fuselage.

 

Markings

There are three decal options on the long sheet, and each one has its own instruction A3 sheet, with stencils that are appropriate to the aircraft’s operator on the opposite side of the sheet for simplicity.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• No.815 Naval Air Sqn., HMS Portland, Royal Navy, RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset, England, 2017
• Marinefliegergeschwader 3, ‘Graf Zeppelin’, Germany, 2018
• Søværnets Helikoptertjeneste (Danish Naval Air Sqn.), 2013

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.  It includes a substantial number of instrument panel decals as well as many stencils to give your model that extra bit of detail.

 

 

Conclusion

The Lynx became a capable aircraft as time went by, and served in the British Navy and Army for many years before retiring relatively recently in favour of its offspring, the Wildcat.  Lots of detail, a busy decal sheet and multiple operator options still makes for an impressive model.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of