Tilt Rotor
aircraft have been tested for may years but only recently has the
materials and technology been avaiable to make them reliable and safe to
put into production. It took many years of development by Bell
Aircraft to finally get the V-22 flying. The USMC was a perfect
customer for such an aircraft, one that can carry large cargo's, take off
vertically and transition to forward flight by rotating the engines from a
vertical orientation to a horizontal orientation allowing the aircraft to
perform like a turbo-prop aircaft. This versitility allows the
assault carriers to stand farther off shore and airlift the troops ashore.
The Italeri
kit is a basic kit with minimal interior in the main cargo area but with
decent cockpit detail. The strange thing is that all the clear parts
are of a dark tinted plastic which makes seeing in to the cockpit
difficult. Assembly is pretty straight forward with not a lot of
gaps to fill. It would have been nice to have the crew door openable
but without some major cutting you are stuck with it being closed.
This kit just begs for an after-market interior (HINT- HINT!!!).
Options for the US Airforce would also be nice, although now that the USAF
has gone to a metallic looking paint it would be quite a challenge to
build. But since I seem to be collecting USMC aircraft I kept it to
the kit supplied Marine Corps version from the kit.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Painted with
Modelmaster paints and weathered with pastel chalks this has made a nice
addition to my 1/48 USMC aircraft which started with the Acadamy CH-46E
and now is made up of the UH-1N, CV-22B, CH-46E, and the CH-53E. I
am looking forward to redoing my UH-1N with the detail set from Cobra
Company, and adding the Wiskey Cobra and doing up the two Harriers.
I think I am going to need a bigger shelf. :)
This won Silver at the 2007
RMMC model contest in Calgary, while the CH-46 brought home a bronze.
Gavin
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