Kawasaki OH-6D JGSDF

[woody37]

Kawasaki OH-6D JGSDF

Hasegawa 1:48

The Hughes OH-6 Cayuse was designed as a light observation helicopter along side a civilian version called the Hughes 500. If you're of a similar age to me, you will immediately think of TC's brightly coloured chopper in the Magnum TV series from the 80's ! Winning a competition for the contract out of 12 rival companies, the OH-6 first flew in 1963 in the US. It's success is quite significant with no less than 23 world records set including time to height, speed and distance without landing. It replaced the Cessna 0-1 Bird Dog in 1966 in the observation role for the US Army. The Kawasaki OH-6J was a licence built version used by the JGSDF as a communications, observation and training helicopter to replace the classic Bell 47. The OH-6D was a development of this by adding additional fins to the tail, an additional rotor making a 5 piece main unit and an array of equipment including FLIR to support the AH-1 Cobra in the anti-tank role.

The Kit

The kit is supplied in Hasegawa's standard top opening box. There are 3 light gray sprue's holding the main parts for the helicopter and 1 clear sprue which is packed into a separate bag to prevent scuffing. Additional parts unique to this variant are contained on a separate resin sprue such as the FLIR, lights and various antennas. First impression of the kit are that it's relatively simple. It only has 50 parts and layout looks fairly straight forwards. The kit shares the same sprue's as the Israeli MD500 Defender so there are redundant parts that will go into the spares box including crew, weapons and nose mounted FLIR.

The fuselage surface is a combination of recessed and raised panel lines, which although looking a little dated, are actually nicely done. The rear doors are separate parts and could be positioned in the open position which gives the opportunity to show off the interior somewhat. That said, the interior is pretty basic, the seats having no detailing in them and the instruments are decals only, so some scratch building or aftermarket detailing will be necessary if this bothers you.

The rotor assembly looks like it will have suitable strength due to having overlapping surfaces and dimples to locate between the rotor blades and hubs, so this is well designed.

The clear parts are very nicely done. The side windows are moulded separately and fit from the inside. They are very clear and lack any distortion, however this makes it all the more important to give the interior a bit of a make over !

The Decals

Decals are supplied for aircraft, both with a challenging camouflage scheme:

• JGSDF, Eastern Army Aviation Group, Camp Tachikawa 2011
  
• 7th Division, 50th Anniversary, Camp Okadama, Jan 2012
  

The latter has some bright yellow stripes to contrast with the camouflage. The decals (including the instruments) are nicely produced with good register and rich colours. Whilst what is in the kit is good, I can't help but think that the options are rather limiting outside Japan. As a civilian version could easily be built from the basic kit (using a four rotor assembly), perhaps this could of been thought about and added to the kit to widen the interest and create more value for money.

Conclusion

I've got mixed opinions on this kit. It's nicely designed and moulded and it fills a gap if you're wanting to produce a Hughes 500 / OH-6 model in 1/48. It's a good base kit with excellent clear parts which for a glass bowl layout is critical. However, value for money is debatable in that the interior is pretty basic and the decal options straight from the box are limited, especially considering the retail price. A 4 rotor hub would of been a welcome addition for modellers wanting to use the base kit to do something different. The camouflage scheme is quite a challenging one to pull off, so care will need to be taken, however assembly of the kit should be straight forwards, even for beginner modellers.

Review sample courtesy of

UK distributors for

[Julien]

Now I really want one of these!

Good review

Julien