Reviewer: Pablo Bauleo
IPMS: # 46363
Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Product: 1/48 Sea King AEW Mk.2A (boxing 09863), 199 parts
MSRP: $65 to over $150
The retail price confusion
Before I go into the kit itself I want to make a comment on the wide range of retail prices for this kit. Originally the kit was supposed to have some resin parts which made Hasegawa to announce its MSRP to be somewhere in the $170. The final kit has no resin parts, just a small PE fret and the cost therefore is lower than original announced.
There seem to have been some confusion among retailers on the cost when the first boxes arrived to the shelves, although in most places now it seems to be coming down in price. Shop around before buying your kit to find the price that reflects what you are getting (ie no resin parts)
The kit
The AEW version of the Royal Navy Sea King was developed as a stop-gap measure in 1982. It basically added electronics and search radar in an inflatable radome protruding on the starboard side.
This kit represents the Westland production of the Sea King, with its appropriate bumps antennas and 6-blade tail rotor. There is a nicely detailed cockpit but not other interior parts. As the kit is molded with the cabin door closed I'm fine with that.
You get a fully inflated radar radome which is only correct for the in-flight configuration. And that is probably my main and only issue with this kit. I like to build the model in the ground configuration with the blades folded. It would have been nice to get both an inflated and a deflated radome in the kit. I guess that the resin parts that didn't make it into the boxing were supposed to take care of that. I've seen online that there is a UK-based company that sells a resin deflated radome for this kit, but I have not seen it available in the US yet.
I decided to build my model without the radome. Eventually I will get the aftermarket resin radome or scratchbuilt one and retrofit it to the kit.
Construction of the kit was relatively simple. I used the decal for the IP, which didn't really settle down properly (most likely my fault due to misalignment), but under the clear part looks fine. I had a fair amount of seam sanding to do in the nose and around the tail boom. Nothing that some Mr Surfacer and a 15-minutes sanding and polishing session wouldn't fix, but I was surprise by that considering that is a Hasegawa kit. Again, it must have been my construction.
Another part that took me by surprise was the assembly of the side pontoons. They attach to the main fuselage by means of two cylindrical rods that don't fit flush against the fuselage body. There is about 2-mm between the helicopter body and the side pontoons. I thought it was a problem with the kit, but after checking references I realized that is the way that the aircraft is built.
Probably the trickiest part was the assembly of the winch-frame to attach it to the fuselage. The instructions are very vague about the relative angle of the different parts. I recommend using the pre-drilled holes in the fuselage as a guide on how to attach the winch-frame and glue the frame together while being dry-fit to the fuselage.
The rotor head is nicely detailed out of the box, but if you feel like adding some detail, there is some room for improvements. If you build the blades in the folded configuration, make sure you keep track of the different blade to rotor-head attachments. Each blade uses a different one that has to be glued in a specific position.
Painting was done with enamels using custom-made shade of gray to match reference pictures. I mixed RLM 66, with a few drops of RLM 72 and a few drops of "Blue Angels Blue". Unusual combination but that shade looks right to my eyes. I did some minor post-shading of the same color based with some RLM 63 for the center of the largest panels.
The decals were applied over a coat of Future. Most of the decals behaved fine, as they were placed over mostly flat areas. I only had a little bit of trouble with one decal that is located over the tail boom hinge. After a second coat of Future, an oil-wash of burnt sepia, green and black was applied on the panel lines and a very diluted oil-wash was brush painted over some panels and around the cabin door.
I had a great time building this kit and I recommended it for the intermediately-experienced modeler. My recommendation is based on the high part number, some tricky assemblies and the need for a replacement radome. Be aware of the kit size. The finished model, with the folded-rotors spans slightly over 15-inches in length.
I want to thank Hobbico for the review sample.
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