This is the third release
of these mouldings, the first being the Royal Navy version
from Italeri and the second the RAF HC3 via Revell of
Germany. Canada has purchased 15 CH-149s (the Canadian
designation for the EH-101) with the first few in service
in 2002 and the remainder in operation by the end of 2003.
The CH-149 will replace the long serving CH-113 Labrador
as Canada's main SAR helicopter and will operate from
Gander Newfoundland, Trenton Ontario, Comox B.C., and
Greenwood Nova Scotia.
The Cormorant (hereafter
referred to as the CH-149 because I really don't like
the name!) has three Rolls-Royce / Turbomeca RTM 322 turbines
of 2,312 shp each, is 22.81m (74ft 10 in) long, 6.5m (21ft
4in) high with a rotor span of 18.59m (61ft) and a maximum
takeoff weight of 14,600kg (32,120lb). Maximum speed is
309km/h (192mph).
Click as you have never clicked
before:
Italeri's kit consists
of three sprues of nicely moulded parts in a lovely yellow
plastic with a sprue of excellent clear parts (packed
in a plastic bag - thank you Italeri!). Fine recessed
panel lines and delicate raised rivets abound and there
is adequate detail in both the cockpit and crew areas
in the form of bulkheads, floors, collective and cyclic
controls, and nice two part seats for the former and jump
seats with moulded on belts for the latter. The rear loading
ramp looks to be moveable and, although not mentioned
in the instructions, I'm sure the main cabin doors could
be posed open to show off the detail there. There is no
internal structure moulded on the inside of the fuselage
halves however. Decals are included for the cockpit instrument
panels and seatbelts.
Italeri has done a nice
job of capturing the look of the relatively simple rotor
head and somewhat bizarrely shaped main rotor blades.
Decal sheet includes markings
for two aircraft, #901 and the demonstrator I-L101 and
it is the latter that I'm assuming Italeri have based
their kit on. Pictures on the Canadian Air Force site
of the first two CH-149s to enter Canada, numbers 904
and 905, reveal several omissions and anomalies on both
the kit mouldings and decal sheet which lead me to believe
the kit is based on the demonstrator:
The forward cabin windows should be round domes
like the rearmost windows and not square as in the
kit. I think vacforming copies of the rear windows
would be the easiest way around this.
There is a prominent searchlight located low on
the port side beneath the third window from the front
that is not included. Shouldn't be too hard to scratchbuild
from some tubing, stretched sprue and an MV Products
lens.
What appears to be a chaff/flare dispenser is moulded
on the starboard fuselage side below the cabin door
but is not present on either of the CH-149s pictured
on the CAF site.
There is a "pie plate" shaped thingy
slightly below and behind the rear dome window on
the starboard side that is not in the kit. This is,
if I'm not mistaken, a CPI (Crash Position Indicator)
and again, would not be difficult to scratchbuild.
Possibly the most difficult to correct is the shape
of the sponson sides. The kit parts have a large bulge
that covers about two thirds of the sponson sides
whereas the real thing has only a small square bulge
on the forward part of the sponsons. Fortunately the
plastic is thick enough that the bulges could either
be reduced in size or sanded off completely and replaced
with plastic card.
The antenna on the port side at the rear of the
cabin area is quite different from that provided by
Italeri. Cut the mounts off of parts 14E and 17E and
use them with new antennas made from wire. Piece o'
cake.
The "Canadian Forces/Forces Canadiennes"
markings are missing from the decal sheet as is the
small canadian flag that should go next to them. Note
this flag has no white background, it's just red on
yellow. This also applies to the small flag over the
'a' of "Canada" which Italeri has incorrectly
printed with a white backing. Also missing are the
prominent dotted lines around the windows and doors
which show rescue crews where to cut in the event
of an emergency. The decal sheet is however, beautifully
printed and does include all of the black walkways
on top of the fuselage as well as the red and white
tail rotor stripes and some stencilling.
Italeri quote the length
of the completed model as 31.6 cm including the rotor.
As the dimensions I have from the CAF site are for the
fuselage and rotor seperately it will be difficult to
assess the scale dimensions without actually building
the thing - something I hope to do soon. Right after I
finish the three hundred other projects I "hope to
do soon...".
Although the list of corrections
and additions needed to correctly protray an in service
machine seems quite long, none of them are very difficult
and I believe an excellent model would still result straight
from the box. Especially if one wishes to do the demonstrator,
although I haven't found any pics of that so I'm only
assuming the kit is based on it.
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