Westland Wessex UH.5 (sic)

[Mike]

Westland Wessex UH.5 (sic)

1:48 Italeri

The beloved Wessex started life as a Westland licenced copy of the Sikorsky Chocktaw, but with a Napier Gazelle turbine engine, and saw service with both the Royal Navy and RAF through its long and successful life as general use helicopter until retirement in 2003, when it was replaced by the Puma. In between entering service in 1961 and its retirement, it became much loved both by the crews and by the troops that it carried. Even HM Queen Elizabeth II used one in a rather fetching red and blue colour scheme until 1998.

It went through many variants, and the aircraft depicted by this kit, was actually titled HU.5, rather than in reverse as stated on the box and instructions. The HU.5 was used extensively by the Royal Marines for troop transport, and appeared in plenty of video footage during the Falklands conflict in 1982, where it was used extensively, with far too few in theatre for the operations required. A Naval HAS.3 airframe by the name of Humphrey also became famous during the Fortuna Glacier Assault that almost ended in disaster, as well as taking part in the capture of an Argentine sub.

There has only been one mainstream kit of the Wessex available in 1:48 scale, released many years ago by Revell, and occasionally re-released just as the eBay prices become ridiculous. Indeed, it has recently been released at a low(ish) price, I suspect in a bid to bring in those last few sales before this new tooling from Italeri hits the shops.

The Kit

The kit arrives in a reasonably large box, with a very nice painting of an HU.5 in a hover just above the ground while its cargo of Marines jump out onto the ground. As well as the typically Falkland scrub under the chopper's wheels, there is also a Falklands War 30th Anniversary badge in the bottom left, commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the conflict. In the top middle is a large white banner that states categorically that this is a 100% New Mould! Good. That's the first promising step, as the Revell moulds are well known for their mistakes and shape issues.

Inside the box are four sprues of mid-grey styrene, one of clear parts, a bag of Photo-Etch (PE) parts and a small square of plastic mesh. The decal sheet is very busy, and the instruction booklet completes the package. First impressions are that this is a quality kit with nicely engraved panel lines that are of varying depths, a fair number of recessed rivets, and some nicely raised detail where appropriate. There is a full interior for the cockpit and transport cabin, as well as a basic representation of the gearbox and final drive to the main rotor. The blades have the requisite sag for a stationary bird, although there is no facility to show them furled away, and the tail is not foldable for stowage onboard ship. Whilst the folded blades would have been nice, the tail isn't too disappointing, as more often than not pictures show the tail extended, even when the blades are folded.

The build starts naturally enough with the cockpit, where two nicely moulded crew seats are built from three parts, and then decorated with the PE seatbelts from the brass fret. The cyclic and collective control sticks are depicted for both the pilots, and a well moulded quilted rear bulkhead separates them from the main cabin. The floor is similarly well detailed, with plenty of rivets, tread plates and the central console moulded in, which should look very nice once painted. The main cab has a super rendition of the floor, which has lots of access panels and rivets depicted as raised detail, just like the real beast. To this affix the front and rear bulkheads, both of which look very nice and conform to my rememberings of the interior references that I have. The roof to the cabin is another nice moulding, having quilted detail on the underside, and the basis of the gearbox on the upper. The quilting on the roof is a little too uniform here, as the roof lining is often found to be quite saggy and untidy after significant use of the aircraft, and here it is shown as regular and smooth. It is however a massive improvement on any previous kits of any scale, so perhaps I'm being a little churlish there.

Into the main cab affix two rows of crew seats, which are canvas and strapping on a tubular framework on the real thing. Italeri have done a pretty good job of replicating them here, within the limitations of injection moulding, and the seats have plenty of stretch and crease marks from use that makes them look more realistic. The legs have a triangular support which in reality a tubular vertical leg and another diagonal bracing leg to support the weight of squaddies laden down with gear. If you're feeling adventurous you can quite easily snip these off and make your own legs from styrene rod. Inside the fuselage halves are raised ribbing, moulded into the shell, but there are a couple of ejector pin marks that mar the otherwise respectable detail, and a few horizontal bits are missing here and there. Above the ceiling, the gearbox is competed by a large spindle part, which was loose in the bag on my copy due to its position on the sprue, a bell-housing and a rear bulkhead that has some chunky moulded in detail.

Before closing the fuselage halves, you will need to insert the side-window parts from the clear sprues and drill out some flashed over holes from which will hang some important parts on the outer skin, as well as a pair of oblong holes on each side of the cockpit into which some recessed parts fit to serve as foot holds for crew access. The underside of the Wessex is a tangle of conduits containing cables and so forth, which has been moulded as a separate insert. Another part is added aft of this to depict the conduit diving back inside the airframe once it has cleared the crew compartment. Like the 1:72 kit of the Wessex from Italeri, the tail wheel leg is moulded into the fuselage, although it is a little sturdier than its smaller sibling, so should survive the build process unless you are VERY clumsy. The wheel is a separate part and just slots onto the axle, but you will need to make sure you align the moulded-in flat of the tyre with the ground, so it may be as well to leave it until you have all the wheels ready to install.

To enable Italeri to get maximum versions from the same basic mould and to simplify moulding of the complex curves around this section, the complete nose is moulded separately, built up from three main parts, and a further three for the distinctive oval intake on the top of the nose. A debris screen is also supplied as a small sheet of plastic mesh, which is shown fitted internally to the large grill, but is also fitted externally on some airframes, so check your references. Also remember not to be overly wasteful of this mesh, as if you elect to use it on the top gearbox grille, you will need a substantial proportion of it then. At this point the main instrument panel is added to the inside top of the nose, which comprises a styrene coaming and flat backing plate that has the pedals build in, and then either a decal or PE part to depict the instrument panel. As the majority of the panel is black, the PE part could be sprayed a suitably dark grey, and installed over the decal so that the instrument dials show through. A few dials would need red and yellow outlines adding, which would be best done before attaching the two, and Klear or other gloss varnish would be a sensible choice for the glue, as it won't affect the decal underneath. It might be sensible to test fit the nose to the rest of the fuselage before the glue has set up completely, to ensure that they match eachother's profile to minimise seam cleanup. Once attached the large exhausts that are characteristic of the Turbine powered Wessex are added, one on each side of the nose. Red "Caution" decals are placed around the base of each exhaust, but as the whole thing will need painting beforehand, leaving the exhausts off until after decaling would be the best policy to ease the placement of these delicate decals. The same could be said of the crew steps that attach into the recessed blocks mentioned earlier. A large black decal is applied over that area, presumably to hide the mucky foot prints of the crew, so the two small (and delicate) parts would be better left off until later.

The Wessex has a large panoramic windscreen, giving the pilots a good view of the surrounding area, and this is supplied as a single part that incorporates the large roof area, which is partly glazed. An overhead console is added to the inside of the part before it is applied, which should be painted carefully and located between the two raised "brackets" in the cockpit roof before the glazing is installed. A large PE strengthening part is then glued to the central roof panel, with a curved styrene part covering the smaller panel in front of that. An antenna and windscreen wipers are provided, but these would probably be better left off until later.

The build turns to the outer skin of this workhorse, with all the attendant conduits and antennae that festoon the outside. Also at this stage the large tubular main landing gear legs are added, and the tail stabiliser slotted into a groove on the front of the vertical tail. Four PE grilles are dotted around the tail area, which will look far superior to any styrene equivalent under a coat of paint. A little bending of these parts is required to conform them to the surface for gluing, so annealing them above a lighter flame and allowing them to air cool will be necessary to soften them slightly. The large balloon tyres have a substantial flat moulded into them, as well as circumferential tread grooves, so alignment of these with the deck will me important and best done once the gear legs have been installed and the glue has fully cured. Some decal choices have the cylindrical emergency flotation bags outboard of the tyre hub, so remember to install or discard these as appropriate to your decaling choice.

The large cabin door on the starboard side of the fuselage can be posed open or closed, and has a window built in that is a separate clear parts, and three minute parts are added to the outside, including a grab handle to facilitate opening. The winch gear is built up from four parts and includes a hook and a two-part winch motor, with a large tubular "running board" along the door threshold. Similarly the pilots' side windows can be posed opened or closed by gluing them into different positions along the window track moulded into the fuselage, and a shaded area on the diagram shows where they are placed when fully open. A few more antennae, and it's time for the main and tail rotors to be built up.

The Wessex has a compliment of four main blades, which are moulded with the typical droop associated with non-carbon fibre blades at rest, so there needs to be no dunking of the parts in scalding hot water to achieve a realistic droop. That will be music to the ears of anyone that has burned their hands doing just that in the past. The rotor-head is made up from three nicely moulded parts that clamp the blades into the hub, although adding extra small details will be down to the modeller and his references. The rotor attaches to the long spindle that is trapped inside the gearbox housing, but if you plan to glue the blades on, remember to install the gearbox grille beforehand. This is supplied as a styrene frame onto which you either glue the remains of the mesh used on the nose grille, or a neat PE part, which will probably be a lot easier if you have access to super glue. It may be as well however to leave the blades unglued to prevent them getting damaged over the long term, which could involve transporting or storage.

The tail rotor is a two-piece arrangement with the blades moulded into the hub, onto which a four-spoked "spider" attaches to give it that familiar look. The completed rotor is then attached to the spindle that is added to the port tail earlier in the build, giving it the possibility of remaining free to spin if you've been careful with the glue.

From the box you can build one of the following four aircraft:

• Royal Navy 874 Squadron, Falklands 1982 - all over olive green.
  
• Royal Air Force 84 Squadron, Akrotiri, Cyprus 1987 - green/grey camouflage over black undersides.
  
• Royal Navy 771 Squadron, Culdrose, UK 1987 - All over blue with wide red tail and nose banding.
  
• Royal Navy RAE, Farnborough, UK 1982 - Olive drab & light stone over a light stone underside - the famous "sand & spinach" scheme.
  

Decals are printed for Italeri by Zanchetti and seem to be of good quality, with colour density and register all looking superb. The sheet is a busy one though, as there are a lot of stencils covering the airframe, which have their own page of the instructions. Care with your scalpel when removing the individual decals will be the order of the day as a result, as the various bands, stencils and national markings are perilously close to eachother.

Conclusion

After all the hand-wringing over the re-release of the Revell kit, which curiously had been called for by many over the years, this kit will doubtless please a lot of Helo lovers. It is a modern tooling of this much loved beast of burden, and seems to have good correspondence to the available plans, although whether plans are a good yardstick given their often unknown heritage, is another question entirely! Nevertheless, it builds well, and has the characteristic look of the Wessex, even to those that are very familiar with the real airframe, which is quite a good yardstick as to its accuracy.

It should sell very well, and deserves to. Out of the box it has enough detail for most modellers, and the inclusion of a small PE fret containing some detail parts is just the cherry on the top of a very nice kit. I expect the aftermarket companies to jump on this to add all the tiny detail that isn't possible with injection moulded kits, and because of the apparent ease of construction we should be seeing plenty of built examples at the shows in short order.

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[heloman1]

Hi Mike, Many thanks for the Wessex review, it would seem as most of our moans re the Revell kit may have been answered. I still have to receive my two kits, so will reserve my judgement. However having worked on the type I may be a little too judgemental with my comments. I look forward to the comments of other. I think the decal sheet alone offers more than enough for the average helo nut.

Colin on the Africa Station

[Mike]

Thanks Colin - I think you're right about knowing something "too well". It can turn you into a gibbering wreck if you focus in on every single inconsistency between the real thing and the kit... you just have to draw the line and realise that this is a 1:48 replica

[avro683]

Thanks for the review Mike, one definitely for the to buy pile. There are of course sufficient differences between this and the Revell kit despite its age for the two to sit very comfortably together on retailers' shelves and peoples' stashes.

[Antoine]

Thanks for the review, Mike.

I might be tempted to get one, as I've just finished this book:

Good news is that there's a chance to see an HSS-1 one day.

[Paul Alan Bardell]

Antoine

I have also just read this book, and would recommend it to all interested in the Falklands War, and Helicopters in general.

Its a very good read.

And i should be getting my 1/48 scale kit this week end - hope i can do it justice.

All the best.

Paul

[KeithBurrage]

Popped into the local model shop on Saturday to pick up some liquid cement and came out with one of these under my arm! funny how that happens isn't it?? Have to agree with Mike on this one. It looks very nice out of the box and as has been pointed out, if you remember that it's a 1/48th replica and not the real thing. It won't disgrace anybody's display shelf.

[Bobski]

Nice review, Mike - I'll definitely be picking one of these up.

Small point that has nothing to do with the model and is probably irrelevant to most people here (but I thought I'd point out because I'm a pedant) - HRH is a term of address for Royals but not the Sovereign, so it should be "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II" or "HM Queen Elizabeth II."

[Winnie]

Also decals printed by the dreaded "Zanchetti" NOT Cartograph. Written right on the decal sheet...

Have a 'Walter" on the way, and looking forward to it!

[Mike]

Thanks for the corrections boys - both integrated to the review now

[grayh]

Wanted one of these so thanks for the review

[Diamondbacks VF-102]

Nice review. I bought the kit at Telford in November. (btw for half the price its normally sold here in Belgium).

Now im looking for some nice reference booktitles. Anyone?

Cheers

[MikeR]

Nice review. I bought the kit at Telford in November. (btw for half the price its normally sold here in Belgium).

Now im looking for some nice reference booktitles. Anyone?

Cheers

If you can get them, I'd recommend the Warpaint No. 65 and there's also the 4+ title on the Wessex. I think you may still be able to get the 4+ book, but you'll need to have a look at the second hand dealers for the Warpaint one.

Mike.

[NAVY870]

The 4+ book is superb and well worth looking for.

Edited January 16, 2014 by NAVY870

[heloman1]

Glad you found the 4+ book, for me it's the Wessex bible/modellers manual. Re the seat and if you haven't already tackled them cut the cushion seat back vertically and add a piece of 1mm card and then flatten off the seat cushion and back rest. Don't make them too wide as I did, otherwise they won't fit.

if you need any input, just ask I'll help glady.

Colin

[Diamondbacks VF-102]

thx for the info guys, Think the 4+ title is avaibale at Hannants otherwise will have to check on ebay