Scale 1/72
Airfix skill level 3
Number of parts 153
Price in the UK £14.99 (2011)
Number of build options 3
No 7 Squadron RAF Odiham May 1991 (Operation Granby markings)
No 18 Squadron RAF Falkland Islands May - June 1082 (Operation Corporate)
No 7 Squadron RAF Odiham August 1989 (7 Squadron 75 years celebration colours)
First Impressions
On opening the large box I was pleasantly surprised to find a bag containing 2 light grey plastic sprues and 1 clear sprue that almost filled the box. The molding of the parts look crisp with fine engraved lines, I could see no flash but there are some injector pin marks that stand out on the inside of the fuselage and other parts. The transparent parts consist of the main cockpit front and sides all in one piece and the 14 round side windows (two spare round bubble winds and two spare flat round window).
The instructions consist of an 8 page A4 booklet with the normal exploded view diagrams, three of the pages are black & white colour guides. The instructions look straight forward and should be reasonable to follow by anyone who as a few kits under their belt.
Decals
On my set the Blue and Red are slightly out of register, this only shows on the red/blue tail stripes, the roundels don’t look to bad, the problem is, I cant see if the white is out of register and will not find out until I put the decal on a dark background. So watch out for the decals.
Possible problem areas
The Mk1 Chinooks had metal blades and when they were upgraded to Mk2 they had the blades changed to composite blades which have a different profile and cord, I understand for a quick search of the internet that the blades in this kit are neither. So if you want an accurate kit you might have to look for alternative blades. Please note I have not checked the shape or profile of the kits blades so I might be wrong.
Interior
There are several large injection pin marks on the inside of the fuselage and on the rear part of the forward bulkhead, as the kit will be dark inside when it’s assembled it might no be such a big problem, the other problem is, Airfix have not supplied any of the troop seats that line both sides of the cabin, that fold up out of the way when not in use. These will not be hard to scratch build but will be fiddly and time consuming.
If you look at the photos you will see the fine detail in this kit in particular the rotor heads and the wheels and pilots seats that have nice finely moulded seat belts.
