The U.S. Coast Guard replaced its aging fleet of Sikorsky HH-52 Sea Guard helicopters with the Aerospatiale HH-65A Dolphin, built in Grand Prairie, Texas. Although Dolphins are stationed mainly on shore, they can be deployed on ships when necessary. The HH-65A is used in all Coast Guard roles, including search and rescue, drug interdiction, and pollution control. Much of the airframe is built from composite materials, making it highly corrosion resistant.
Trumpeter (from China) has expanded its range of 1/48 scale aircraft kits with the release of the Aerospatiale Dauphin (Dolphin) family. The Coast Guard version is molded in light gray plastic that is slightly softer than most kits but is easy to work. The moldings show fine engraved detail.
The eight-page instruction booklet has clear and easy-to-follow diagrams. Only one choice of markings is included with the kit, but the six-color sheet is well-printed and has good color registration.
Trumpeter's interior has only the basic controls, seats, and bulkheads. The instrument panel is a mixture of raised detail and decals. Photos of the actual aircraft show the interior crammed with gear. Before gluing the interior in place, I added the cabin windows. The rear bulkhead and the side braces (part Nos. B7 and B10) overlap some of the window flanges. Trumpeter has flashed over a window opening on the port fuselage half (open in another version of the kit); unfortunately the bulge from that plug shows on the exterior of this version's fuselage. The interior fits very well.
I glued the canopy halves together while dry-fitting them to the fuselage. Removing the seams without marring the windows was difficult, and the canopy didn't fit well to the fuselage. All the sanding scratches were removed using a polishing stick and a dip in Future acrylic floor polish. I masked the upper windows and sprayed Tamiya clear green on the inside to simulate the tinted windows.
Most of the fuselage seams were easy to eliminate, but a bit of filler was needed in several places on the bottom. The fit of the bottom plate (A9) was poor. It would be better to build a reinforcement rim around the opening with styrene strip, instead of depending on the few pins the kit gives you. I blended the plate to the fuselage with epoxy putty, and sanding this area destroyed all the fine detail. Weight had to be added inside the nose to keep the model balanced on its landing gear.
Be sure to install the rotor tub (B6) in the proper position on the engine deck or the rotor will be off center. Leaving off all the small parts will make masking and painting easier, but the easily broken tail skid must be installed through the bottom plate before the plate is added to the tailboom.
Masking all of those windows was a chore. I used frisket for the cabin windows and the two flat windows on the nose, but I masked all of the other windows with thin strips of drafting tape.
The overall color scheme for the U.S. Coast Guard Dolphin is brilliant red-orange with a broad white and a narrow blue band on the tail boom. I painted the model first with gloss white enamel. After the white was dry, I masked the tail rotor, the top of the engine deck, and the white band with tape, then airbrushed Testor Boyd Sunburst for the red-orange. The instructions give color codes for Gunze Sangyo "Mr. Color" enamels, but I had trouble finding them.
The decals are excellent and responded to Microset and Microsol; the white decals are opaque. Trumpeter doesn't give you the blue band, so I cut one from a solid-color decal sheet. A pair of thin white stripes is supposed to run along the bottom of the fuselage, but I missed those. I painted the exhaust area and nose cone with Polly Scale flat black, then used grimy black (a really dark gray) on the window frames. I painted the rotor blades Polly Scale Soviet green.
Aside from the rather sparse interior and the fit of some parts, I became more pleased with the kit as it neared completion. I spent nearly 26 hours building my Dolphin, a little longer than average because of the gloss paint scheme and all the masking. The finished model matches the dimensions I found on a web site. An excellent source for pictures of the Coast Guard Dolphin is
www. photo vault.com.
I understand the Dolphin is featured in many episodes of "Baywatch." Funny, I don't recall ever seeing a helicopter on that show; perhaps I should do more research.