Carrera Revell Airbus H145 ADAC Luftrettung (04969) 1:32

[Mike]

Airbus H145 ADAC Luftrettung (04969)

1:32 Carrera Revell

 

 

The H145 has a convoluted development process that started with a collaboration between MBB and Kawasaki, who merged into Eurocopter under the Airbus banner, undergoing a few changes in designation during the process, the most well-known of which is the EC145.  The MBB R117 rear section was combined with the EC135 forward fuselage and avionics to create a twin-engined helicopter with two crew and a maximum passenger load of nine.  It wasn’t a simple cut-and-shut of course, with substantial redesign of parts, which led to a capable aircraft with better range and load-carrying capability than either of its predecessors.  It first flew in 1999, and has gone on to be used by several European nations in civil and military roles as well as customers even further afield, with the T2 variant introduced in 2011 with new engines, avionics, a shrouded tail rotor and other aspects improving its performance further.  Another variant is in development at time of writing, further expanding the type’s capabilities, and using a new highly advanced rotor to improve its carrying capacity, an upgrade that once in-service can be retro-fitted to existing airframes, offering similar benefits.

 

ADAC is the German equivalent of the British AA or American Triple A, and stands for Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club that translates to General German Automobile Club, and like the AA, their signature colour is yellow.  Those facts might seem to be irrelevant to a helicopter, but they also run a fleet of air rescue helicopters for its members via a subsidiary ADAC Luftrettung, which translates to Air Rescue, as you’d imagine.  The aircraft are located strategically throughout Germany so that any medical emergency case can be reached in 15 minutes, getting the casualty to medical care within the Golden Hour, vastly increasing their chances of survival when compared to traditional ground-based ambulances that are slower and subject to the vagaries of traffic jams, poor roads or even a total lack of infrastructure where the casualty may be.  Another operator of the H145 is Rega, the privately-run non-profit Swiss Air Rescue organisation, and their colours are red and white, the same as their national flag, which is a big plus.

 

 

The Kit

This is a new boxing of a kit that was originally released in 2005, but has been upgraded with new parts, which is borne out by the differing copyright dates on some of the sprues, one sprue dated 2017 and containing parts for the newer T2 shrouded tail rotor that wasn’t present on the original design.  The kit arrives in a deep end-opening box, with a photo of the ADAC airframe on the front, and a Rega aircraft inset in the bottom left.  At this scale the part count is high, weighing in at 275 parts to detail the model, although many those parts will remain on the sprues and are blacked out on the sprue diagrams at the front of the instruction booklet.  There are thirteen sprues of grey styrene, three of clear parts, a large decal sheet and the instruction booklet that is printed in colour, with painting and decaling profiles on the rear pages.  Detail is good, although some of the parts have shiny surfaces that hark back to its origins.  There are no flash or mould defects visible, but as with any model, clean-up and test-fitting should result in a creditable replica of this modern rescue helicopter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the floor, which has four holes filled near the rear before the details are added, starting with a shallow bulkhead under the front.  Flipping the floor back over, the twin sets of pedals are attached to the front, slotting into the bulkhead, with a scrap diagram showing how they should locate from the side.  The collective and cyclic sticks are fitted in duplicate, with a rotor-brake on the right side, the use for which I found out from asking a pilot at the recent RAF Valley families’ day.  The RAF also operate the EC145 (as they called it) in the air-sea rescue training role.  The centre console has a choice of two instrument inserts and decals for the two operators, mounting on top of a two-part base, which has a separate fire extinguisher added to the rear on the left side.  The main panel is mounted on top of the console in a two-part binnacle, again with a choice of two panels and decals, one for each operator.  An additional two-part coaming is added to the sides of the binnacle, then the crew seats are built from front and rear portions, plus headrest and two cantilever legs, mounting on rails behind the instruments.  An equipment package is built up from eight parts and is fitted in the space behind the left pilot’s seat, and looking like a sci-fi coffee machine.  A small instrument panel is mounted on a bracket at an angle at the base of the package, adding a passenger seat to the side, facing the rear, and two down the port mounting rail, facing forward. Like the pilot seats, they are made from front and rear L-shaped parts, with two supports that mate to a square base, and all seats have crew belts moulded-in, plus decal seatbelts and material pattern decals.  Two packs of medical equipment are built from two and three parts each, one having three pressurised bottles projecting from the top for medical use, applying dial decals to them.  These are installed behind the rearmost of the two seats on the port side, the starboard side of the cabin taken up by a stretcher on a drop-down wheeled frame that is made up from five parts, and mounted on a two-part base that has a diagonal rear panel to prevent the stretcher from moving during flight.

 

 

Like many helicopter models, there is an inner skin to the model, which will be seen through the extensive glazing of the cockpit.  The two sections behind the side doors have grab-handles and several decals applied before equipment racks are installed over them, then joining to the floor at the rear.  The roof panel is painted and extensively decaled before it is joined to the top of the interior assembly, and set aside while the fuselage halves are prepared, initially by painting the interior a dark grey to prevent bare plastic from being seen.  The two side and cockpit side windows are inserted from inside on both halves, and a door interior part is laminated into the cockpit area to add detail there, applying various decals to the surfaces once painted.  The two fuselage halves are then brought together around the interior, adding a bulkhead to the top, cutting a 10mm x 8mm slot into the top centre of it before installation.  The gap in the underside is filled with a large insert that has the legs for the skids, and a flush insert near the front where equipment is sited on other boxings. 

 

A portion of the engine cowling and ducts are moulded into the fuselage halves, painting the ducts during assembly, fitting a pair of circular parts to the front of them, which need a small section removing beforehand, as explained in the accompanying diagrams.  The rotor head is built from upper and lower halves, and mounts onto a circular boss with a blade attitude actuator fitted between them, further mounting the assembly on a square base and attaching it via a pin that should leave the blades free to rotate.  As an alternative, a cylindrical spacer is fixed underneath the square base, and a long rod is glued into the underside of the rotor head, leaving the two sub-assemblies separate for ease of painting of the model and rotors separately.  Either choice can then be trapped between the two main engine cowling parts, adding a pair of stiffeners to two sets of lugs inside the cowling that should prevent the seam from coming apart due to handling, which is good to see.  The stabilising fins are each made from top and bottom surfaces plus an end-cap with an indicator light moulded-in.  The shrouded rotor is made from separate rotor and stator blades that are mated between a cap and pin, then inserted into the port boom half, fitting the bearing in the centre at the front of the shroud.  The two halves are then mated, and after dealing with the seams, three inserts are fitted around the outside of the tail, and three more are placed in recesses below, which minimise the amount of seam-filling on the underside.  Two clear lights are added to the rear and tip of the tail, then the stabilisers are slotted into recesses at the rear of the boom, mating the boom to the engine cowling, then fixing that in place on raised locating lugs on the fuselage.

 

Although the model looks very much like a helicopter now, there is still much to do over the following pages, starting with the rest of the glazing, but a decal for the overhead console will need to be applied, taking care to fill the seam inside before you do.  It’s a step that’s easily missed on the instructions, so could be discovered only later to your frustration.  Glazing starts with the vision panels under the nose, followed by the large single frontal glazing, after which the tapered fairing for the tip of the engine cowling is plugged-in, and a prominent sensor is fixed to the space between the front glazing at the tip of the nose.  The engine exhausts are painted and glued into the outlets in the rear of the cowling, then the two sliding side doors are made from two skins with a piece of clear glazing between them, and applying a gaggle of decals to the freshly painted interior.  The doors can then be posed closed by inserting them into their cut-outs, or slid back ready for action as you like it.  Fun with doors hasn’t finished yet, but which type of rear doors you fit will depend on which decal option you plan to depict.  The ADAC doors have a window in each one next to the opening edge, adding a clapping plate behind the starboard half, and decaling both.  The Rega doors have no windows and fewer decals, but have a blue and grey box on the port half, and all doors can be posed open or closed as you prefer.  Both decal options have a standard set of sensors and antennae underneath the fuselage, then diverge depending on which decal option you’ve chosen again.  The ADAC option has a foot bar half way up the legs, fitting the skids with a shaped plate applied over the length of the skid on both sides.  Attachment braces for the plates and blade antennas between the legs finish off the ADAC legs, while the Rega skids have the foot bars, and a small fairing to the rear of the skids, plus two plates that fit to the angled portion of the skids, thickening and extending them slightly.  Both decal options have a couple of custom sensors/antenna added under the nose, then five hand-holds are fitted around the engine cowling to assist access for maintenance, adding one windscreen wiper arm down the centre of the windscreen.

 

The winch over the port side door is made in two sections, one consisting of three parts, the other with three more parts including the fairing around the winch mechanism, painting the winch block red for ADAC, and adding a yellow stripe to the Rega option.  The first assembly is fitted into holes in the side of the port fuselage, adding a bracing strap between the two arms before inserting the winch assembly into position, and adding a pair of towel-antenna to the boom just behind it, plus three more whip-antenna under and over the boom, the Rega option adding a pair of yellow stripes to one of them.  More individualised antennae are fitted to the roof above the cockpit, the Rega option including a wire-cutting fin, while ADAC forego this.

 

Each of the four rotor blades has two circular drop-weights fixed to a clamp moulded near the base of the rotor, and are either fixed to the rotor head on the model or separately, depending on your earlier choice.  The circular base is then linked to each blade by an actuator, with a scrap diagram showing the completed assembly, finishing the rotors with a shallow cap in the centre.

 

 

Markings

There are two decal options in the box, as already mentioned.  One in service of ADAC in yellow, the other a Rega airframe in red and white.  Both options are kept in good clean condition, so weathering should be minimal, but check your references if you’d like to make your model more like an in-service aircraft.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• ADAC Luftrettung
• Rega Air Rescue

 

 

 

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.  There are a lot of small decals applied to the interior as well as the exterior, and they will do a lot to improve the detail and realism of the model, so take your time and get them all on your model.  Also, watch out for the overhead panel decal and ensure that you apply it before closing the canopy.

 

 

Conclusion

Having been up-close to a British EC145 recently, this aircraft is a sleek and modern helicopter, with plenty of detail moulded into the sprues.  It should build into a creditable replica with some care and attention, and its bright scheme should stand out in your cabinet.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

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[cmatthewbacon]

Great overview, Mike. It seems like an opportunity for some aftermarket UK Air Ambulance decals… the luminous Yorkshire pair are regularly seen overhead here…

best,

M.

[Mike]

23 minutes ago, cmatthewbacon said:

Great overview, Mike. It seems like an opportunity for some aftermarket UK Air Ambulance decals… the luminous Yorkshire pair are regularly seen overhead here…

best,

M.

You might need some extra instrument panels too, as even the ADAC and Rega birds have different fits.  I'm going to send my walkaround to Julien of the British EC145 shortly (I've just remembered - he's hopeless with technology), so that might be a close one for fit & finish, or it might not.

[Plastimic]

These Helicopters are used by our STARS ambulance service in Alberta. I have a friend whose son is a pilot and my job at the moment has me involved in a fundraiser/dinner they do at the BMO center in downtown Calgary once a year. they actually wheel one in for people to look at and sit in. I do not have room for this kit in my small abode. But I think I will have to just break all the rules and build one.

 

sincerely 

Tim