SPA Modeler

Yes, we Germans have a soft spot for unintelligible acronyms! H145M LUH KSK! US Airforce, beat this!

Quotation from Revell´s website on this:

A model construction kit of this light multi-purpose helicopter that was developed in close co-operation with the Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK) - (Special Forces Command) and its requirements. Additionally the day and night flight capable H145M supports the Kommando Spezialkräfte der Marine (KSM) - (Naval Special Forces Command)

All clear now? Hope so...

Now, this is my entry to this GB. As a starter the box shot:

First thing to do is what I need to do with almost every box from Revell: modify it! Thanks to Revell´s insistency to get us their end-opening crappy boxes I reached for some tape and my trusty cutter knife. I taped the box´s ends shut, and made my first cuts on the back of the box:



Much better now!

Building started with preparing most of the interior parts for priming and painting. Lots of preparing! I had to use some aluminium boxes to sort the parts according to their final colour after priming. Here you see some of them having been primed with Ultimate´s black primer, known to our U.S. friends as Stylnrez. I don´t guarantee for the spelling here!

This primer is shot straight from the airbrush. I found mine a little bit on the thick side, so I added some cleaner to thin it. First it spray great, but after some minutes it seems to agglutinate more and more in the cup and colour feed of the airbrush. Don´t know why. I cleaned my airbrush and restarted.



The letters on the trays refers to Revell´s colour guide. I hate them not giving any other recommondations than their own. I will use Gunze paints here.

I intend to do the surveillance version here, because I like this cute little optics ball up front! Here it is on some reflective foil I got from my wife; she has such stuff in her scrapbook tool box.



Don´t know how to get the fitting shapes, but time will tell when I am about to work on this.

This kit from Revell´s line of kit variants has lots of parts in the box! So far I am impressed by the detail given. Not bad for below 20 Euro!


Please excuse the cat´s hair...

The fuselage´s inside has been primed and has got the first coat of dark grey colour, choosen to my taste.



I attached the front door inside parts with Maskol. These will be taken off later and other paint added. This way the parts serve as masks, to keep glue spots free of paint!

Here we have the engine bay cover and the instrument panel´s hood. First one has reinforcement plates given by Revell, to be applied to the inside for rigidity. Nice move! The seam will later be covered with Magic Sculp.



I have used Deluxe Material´s Perfect Plastic Putty on some interiour parts, which gave a nice smooth surface after some wet sanding. But, having applied the primed the putty shows that it took it´s mouth too full. So, on any visible seams Magic Sculp will be used now.

Did I mention that this kit has lots of parts! The box really is full! But as you see many of them won´t be used on this version, being blacked out on the instructions:



That´s it so far. More later!

Thomas back on the bench. Always a good reason for being patient!
Never heard about or seen anything about the kit nor about the helicopter. Was I living beneath a rock? A quick check over at Scalemates told me, that those are modified moulds from 2005. So one can expect a decent fit at least. Cool stuff!

Hullo! Nice to see the blue backgrounds appear, with your explanations, Thomas. I am already intrigued by your use of Maskol as a temporary adhesive—a fantastic way to keep tabs and glue areas free and clear.

I am probably living under an even bigger rock than the one Torben mentions, so I spent a few moments learning more about these helicopters. I am sure you have been to the Airbus site specifically for information about the H145M LUH, but I am attaching a photo (downloadable in high definition) that shows the weapons system:


image: Airbus

Link: http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-re ... ystem.html

I did not know that GSG-9 was no more, and has been part of the KSK for 20 years now. I was just reading up on that. Interesting stuff!

It looks like they use this chopper in a crossover role like 160th SOAR uses the AH/MH-6 and MH-60. Nice!



I presume the interior color is to work best with NVGs for night ops like our same tasked choppers are...

Thomas,

Welcome to the GB and what a cracking choice - that is great looking aircraft.

I really enjoyed your OP and look forward to more!

Regards

Stuart

Thank you, guys! I only wished I had more time at hands to go ahead! But hey: only three days ´til Friday!