SCALE MODEL NEWS

SMN report It’s something of a helicopter time at the moment - the stealth machines used in the bin Laden raid, a possible European-issue NH90 stealth-design, and now the news that British Army WAH-64D Apache AH1s have been ordered into North Africa, operating from the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean , in joint operations with French Eurocopter Tigers.  British Army Apache at RAF Fairford. Which Apache model to make? There are plenty of Apache models out there, including the diminutive 1:144 scale Revell kit, but for a complex machine like this with so much detail in the cockpits, weapons, and rotor assemblies, smaller models are not really the most satisfying way to go, and even 1:72 scale doesn’t appeal to us. No, in our view 1:48 is the best all-round scale for doing justice to this state-of-the-art attack helicopter. And for the easily-recognizeable ‘D’ version, which mounts a Longbow radar atop the rotor mast, both Italeri and Hasegawa kits make good starting points. Front c...

SMN report The expert Italian aviation team of David Cenciotti and Ugo Crisponi have got together again to visualise a type of helicopter that Cenciotti thinks could also have taken part in the bin Laden raid in Pakistan. Modifications to the Chinook Like Crisponi’s visual of the MH-60, this Stealth-Chinook depicts many similar features of such a machine, including smoothed and faceted nose and air intakes, but the Chinook's signature fuselage sponsons are shown here modified with a similar treatment. The rotor heads have discs to cover the complex connection assemblies, and the blades themselves are spectacular hooked scimitars.  Good starting point for a stealthy build.   Boarding a standard-issue Chinook. Refuelling options Once again, Cenciotti and Crisponi have included a retractable landing gear and cleaned-up fuselage surfaces, free of all the usual humps and bumps that increase the radar cross-section. A notable omission is the in-flight refuelling probe sported b...

SMN report After news of the secret US stealth chopper that crashed during the bin Laden raid, and the previous NATO bombing of Colonel Gaddafi’s villa in Tripoli, Libya, it struck us that maybe - just maybe - there might be a European-issue stealth helo flying quiet and unseen through the night skies. We had a close look at likely candidates and reckon that the NH90 military helicopter fits the bill pretty well. It has a composite fuselage, a fairly stealthy faceted fuselage, retractable landing gear, and enough room to carry a fully-equipped SAS snatch team. Revell 1:72 scale NH90 kit box. EuroStealth helicopter to capture Gaddafi? The NH Industries machine has become a major success story, and a limited-edition stealth version would make financial sense, particularly if a small number of them were shared across the 11 Euroland countries that fly various versions of the NH90. The drawings show how a fairly minor airframe clean-up could give the NH90 the ‘quietness’ it needs to tackle...