It’s been a long time coming, but it’s great to see a 1/72 scale kit of the Westland Sea King HC.4, characterized by its longer fuselage. Cyber-hobby covers the commando transport with an all-new kit.
Inside the box, you will find five sprues of injection-molded parts and a fret of photoetched metal with three additional pieces. The molded parts are finely detailed with recessed panel lines.
You have a few options with your Sea King. The rotors come with a naturally weighted bend to them; you can build for a static display (with the blades drooping) or an airborne pose (the blades are upturned in flight). Rotors and tail can be positioned extended or folded.
The 3-page, 10-step instructions include a parts-tree map, a paint/decal reference guide, and a cross-reference chart for Gunze Sangyo and Testors paints.
The build starts in the cockpit, and the detail there is nice. The pilot and copilot seats look great and appear accurate. The instrument panel looks busy, as do the control sticks. Sadly, much of this detail is lost after the windscreen is in place.
The crew compartment is also well-detailed, with plumbing and such on the walls. Crew seats look great, too. The photoetched-metal fret can be used to detail the machine gun. Keeping the crew compartment door open (in Step 7) will help show off some of this work.
Step 4 begins assembly of the three-part fuselage. The fit of the fuselage halves was perfect, needing no filler. The fuselage bottom was a tight fit but snapped into place with a little pressure.
I found a couple of errors in the instructions on Step 6. Part E2 was mislabeled and should be Part E9. Same with Part C28; it should be C29. I postponed the pitot tubes (parts C26 and C27) until the end to avoid breaking them off.
The clear parts, although scratch-free and crystal clear, did not fit well. The windscreen wanted to pull away from the fuselage. Take your time and glue it in sections to subdue it.
The paint guide refers to Gunze Sangyo H330/361 as the fuselage color, but the cross-reference chart does not include this color. So, I eyeballed the color and used Tamiya NATO green, a close match.
Cartograf printed the high-quality decals. I noticed no silvering on any of the markings, and they settled over raised details with a touch of Micro Set solution. After a flat coat, the decals looked like they were painted on.
My model took approximately 11 hours to complete, about what I expected when I first opened the box.
Because of the fit issues with the windscreen, I wouldn’t recommend this model for a beginner. But someone who is relatively new to the hobby but has built a few kits should have no problem achieving a realistic Sea King.
Note: A version of this review appeared in the January 2013 FineScale Modeler.