You wait almost 50 years for a 1/48 scale H-21 to replace the old Aurora kit - then, suddenly, there are two in four years. Four years ago it was the Fonderie Miniature kit; now comes the Special Hobby H-21 Shawnee "Flying Banana Over Vietnam."
There are nice resin and white-metal details for the cockpit and rotor heads, and the clear parts are fine. I liked the cargo bay doors molded in clear plastic; just mask off the windows, then paint. A photoetched-metal fret provides screens, cargo-door tracks, a cockpit center console, steps, and various exterior hardware.
The medium gray moldings look all right, but most components - fuselage halves, bulkheads, and floor - have no locators. On the main landing gear struts, each main vertical strut has a little locating dimple which should be drilled deeper to accommodate the locating pin on the strut. The V struts underneath have no locator holes, and the instructions aren't clear regarding where to drill them, either. My struts ended up about ¼" too far aft. Also, the nose gear strut has no oleo scissors; I dug one out of my photoetched-metal spares.
The sprues have no part numbers; you'll have to refer to the parts map on pages 2 and 3 of the 10-page instruction booklet. Decals provide markings for five aircraft which are indicated in a 6-page color insert. However, olive drab is designated FS14102. That's Vietnam medium green in the Southeast Asia scheme, but from my recollections I'm pretty sure the proper color is 34079 or 34086; I used 34079 dark green.
Cockpit parts seemed undersized. I mistakenly mounted the seats on the cross member (Part C4); they should be in front of it, on the floor, to put them closer to the control sticks (parts C10, shown backwards on the sheet). The instrument shroud should be notched or cut back on the forward area (I corrected it with a file in about 2 minutes). The rudder pedals' shape also is wrong, and the cross-linkage and associated brackets are missing. I added photoetched-metal seat belts and harnesses of my own.
When the bulkhead behind the cockpit didn't fit, I shaped it as best I could and glued it to the floor. The lack of locators requires guesswork; I had to relocate bulkheads and flooring, filling gaps with Micro Kristal Klear.
The legs of the bench seats in the cargo bay don't line up with the holes you're instructed to drill in the floor. For the port side, drill the holes for the end legs only and snip off the other locators. On the starboard side, the location is too far forward, blocking the cargo door. Move it back one hole to stagger it.
The driveshaft shroud doesn't sit properly, leaving a gap at the roof. The rear tailplanes go together all right, but where they join the fuselage a large gap had to be filled with Kristal Klear.
The white-metal rotor heads are nicely cast. Mine needed straightening; make sure the rotor arms are 120 degrees between each of the blades or they'll look funny.
The canopy went on easily, and the cargo compartment windows needed only minor trimming. Install them before mating the fuselage halves.
Next comes a multitude of photoetched-metal parts for the exterior. Most fit OK, but not for the sliding cargo doors. Dimples in the fuselage don't line up with the mounting stubs on the tracks, and when the rollers are attached to the doors they don't catch the tracks. Thinning the doors would help, but you'd probably still have to bend the fragile photoetched metal - a risk I avoided by simply gluing the doors to the fuselage.
I chose scheme "B" for the decals. They seemed brittle and tended to curl under the paper, but they settled down.
Even though the kit would benefit from a more-complete cockpit, it looks like an H-21. The model matches dimensions from www.boeing.com and photos from www.aircraftresourcecenter.com. It took about 35 hours to build, mainly because of the fit issues. If you want to build this Flying Banana, you'll need some experience to deal with the fit problems and all the photoetched metal.
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