1/35 (or 1/48) UH-1B Iroquois 'Huey' helicopter

[Peter Browne]

Are there any (good) 1/35 UH-1B Iroquois 'Huey' helicopter kits?  

 

This is for a RAAF aircraft in the Vietnam conflict 1966 to 1972.

 

An alternative might be a US operated Huey during that conflict, but I would prefer a RAAF model.

 

This is to go with a 1/35 AFV Club RAAC Centurion.

 

Peter

[Antti_K]

Hello Peter,

 

I've just purchased the Academy 1/35 scale UH-1C (kit number 12112) and I think it is the only "Huey" kit in this scale. I haven't made any detailed checks yet, but so far the kit looks nice, although it is rather plain for its size and scale. For example a lot of small details (like very visible structural stiffeners) are missing from the cockpit, the seats are rather plain with molded seat belts and so on. There are also some nasty ejector marks.

 

All doors (including engine bay doors) are clearly meant to be built in the open position. The engine bay lacks details, so scratch building is required if you wish to present your model with the doors open. The fit isn't the best one, if you choose to close all doors.

 

Some push rods are missing from the rotor head and these have to be scratch built.

 

So far the worst thing has been attaching the cockpit roof windows (those green tinted ones). They are very thin, don't match the roof contours very well and the openings are too small. Proceed carefully with these if you choose to build this kit.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Peter Browne]

OK, what about 1/48 then?

[spruecutter96]

If we're talking about a UH-1D, then there's very little choice. I'm assuming you would prefer 1/35th, as it will be near an AFV Centurion. The Panda Models kit is difficult to find, expensive and a real "filler-queen" from what I've read. Dragon re-boxed it, with some added after-market bits and a good crew. You could find one on E-Bay, but they are not exactly common or cheap. 

 

The Revell 1/32nd UH-1D is a non-starter, IMHO. Designed to appeal to kids, with working-hinge doors, very poor, inaccurate interior (plus loads of rivets, which are the scale-size of donuts). I have seen one example at a show which looked pretty cool, but the owner said he spent scores of hours and a fair bit of money correcting all the nastier aspects of the kit.  

 

Considering what an important and numerous type the Huey is, there is a real, mystifying lack of decent kits in the larger scales.  

 

Hope this helps. 

 

Chris. 

Edited August 17, 2022 by spruecutter96
Correcting a typo.

[jpk]

What about the Revell, (Monogram) 1/48 UH-1? Don't know if it is a B or C. It is an old kit but looks good in the box to me.

 

[Ben Brown]

The Monogram 1/48 kit is a mashup of the B and C. It has the C rotor and cabin section but a B tail boom. Cobra Company made a resin set to finish the job of making it a C; I think Lone Star Models sells it, now. The HobbyBoss 1/48 is mostly a B, with a C tail boom. Many Bs were modified as such. It has simplified detail, especially in the cockpit, and some incorrect details, but it’s a relatively simple build. The Monogram kit originally dates back to the early 60s, so it’s showing it’s age and will fight you every step of the way. I’ve seen some builders use bits from the Monogram kit to dress up the HobbyBoss kit. That’s probably the path I’m going to take on mine.
 

Ben

[RobL]

I'd go with the Academy UH-1C, even though it's not a B.  I have built one (sadly it's now broken) and I have another waiting to replace it, best short body UH-1 kit imho.  Helps if you buy the aftermarket brass bits for the ammo feeds on the M134 miniguns, think they're by Eduard (?) also better M134 barrels (I bought brass ones by RB I think), but the kit is just as good without those.

 

Revel reboxed it in 2018 as their code 04960, and it's probably the most available version, but I also see on Scalemates that Academy reboxed their version again under number 12112 in 2020.

 

For 1/48 you have the aforementioned Hobbyboss and Revell/monogram kits for a short body Huey, as has been said with some work the Monogram kit can turn out OK (I managed to get one to look half decent, so it's not all bad, although I didn't use the resin parts, just built it oob).  Depends how/if you want to arm it though - the Monogram kit is the only of the two with weapons, and it sports quad-M60s and rocket pods.

 

Or, again in 1/48 there are an Italeri UH-1D and a Kitty Hawk UH-1D (long body hueys) - both of which are pretty good, I've built the Italeri kit (and their UH-1N) and it's pretty good (although there's no detail on the underside), never had the Kitty Hawk offering but I've seen it built very nicely and it was designed with the help of Floyd S Werner, a well known (perhaps in the US) UH-1 modeller - he also built an example and gave the kit the thumbs up. 

Edited August 17, 2022 by RobL

[RobL]

On 16/08/2022 at 08:57, Antti_K said:

 

Some push rods are missing from the rotor head and these have to be scratch built.

 

 

 

The push rods are in the kit, Academy just left them off the instructions.  😉  🙄

I was informed of this when I was frequenting the Helicopters forum on Finescale Modeller's forums - there's a whole bunch of very knowledgable guys over there (or there were 5-10 years ago), some of which also frequent scale-rotors.com forums and arcforums.com.  Couple of guys in particular, going by the names of Heavy Arty, Rotorwash, and Melguyver.  Rotorwash was kind enough to send me a whole oop Esci 1/48 UH-1D kit, but that's another story...

 

@Flat Chat Even though some of the guys may not be active on those sites anymore, it may be worth googling for info re. Hueys on those sites, I did back when I was building my Revell/Monogram 1/48 kit and the 1/35 Academy kit, back in 2016ish (something like that) and I found a mine of useful info on armaments, huey variants, and paint schemes, pertaining to Vietnam.

Edited August 17, 2022 by RobL

[FloydWerner]

On 8/15/2022 at 8:13 AM, Flat Chat said:

Are there any (good) 1/35 UH-1B Iroquois 'Huey' helicopter kits?  

 Seminar makes a 1/35th UH-1B.  It’s pretty nice.  The biggest issue is that they packed the vinyl ammo chutes with the blades and the vinyl eats into the blades.  I’ve never seen one that didn’t have this problem

Floyd

[gavingav1]

I have built the Academy 1/35th uh-1 and it builds pretty well, the only fit issue is the main windscreen can be a little difficult to get into a good position, i own two seminar kits which are clones of the academy kit but look a little nicer, they seem to my eyes to have better and sharper engraving than the Academy kit and the general molding quality looks better, it's like seminar copied the kit and cleaned up the tooling too

 

Academy kit

[Antti_K]

5 hours ago, RobL said:

The push rods are in the kit, Academy just left them off the instructions.  😉  🙄

 

That's excellent news! Thank you RobL🙂 Luckily I haven't started to scratch build them yet.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[gavingav1]

if you are considering copters in 48th scale then the  italeri bell 47 in 48th scale includes Australian Vietnam war decals