While the Squadron putty was drying I cut the nose of an ESCI FFAR pod:
FFAR pod nose cone cut
and inserted the base into the inlet of the APU to give it some detail.
Stock engine/APU intakes
Here’s how the outcome looks before paint:
New detail added to the APU intake
The amount of putty required and the sanding is obvious on the series of pictures above, but let me tell you – this is a great stress-relief technique.
I also created a new gun mount to replace the missing part, using brass barrels of a design closest to the original GSh-30. These are fixed into a block of laminated styrene. The white brackets are scrap styrene sheet.
I built this kit for a group build in April this year. My goal was to finish the build in the shortest time possible – it was intended as a kickstart after for quite some time I did not finish a kit.
The basic airframe used has been an ancient ESCI release which I bought dirt-cheap from a guy that regularly renews his collection. He had used certain parts from the kit, the gunpack included, so I was up for some scratchbuilding fun.
I started with the cargo hold doors, which were rather thick. I had to thin them around the edges in order for them to fit.
The HobbyBoss effort has been on the market for some time already and it really retired the previous kits in the scale. A detailed cockpit, a pretty serious and well-detailed arsenal that could actually fill the pylons of 4 Hinds, better shapes, more adequate rotor heads, engraved panel lines and decent surface details. Most modelers also notice it’s a good fitter, so for about 10 euros it came as a notable bang for the buck.
The few issues noted on The Net are the overrepresented raised lines on the main rotor, the single-detail canopy (common for both cockpits) and the seam line going down the middle of it. But it still started a new era for the fans of the feared “Crocodile” – the biggest, toughest, most popular attack helicopter in the world.
