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Any word on the MRC UH-1D rumor?


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I agree. Somebody there needs to call a meeting.

If anyone should do a 1/35 UH-1D/H, it's MRC/Academy.

Can you say "cha-ching".

But alas, nobody listens to me, not even my wife and kids.

(cricket sounds...chirp, chirp)

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MRC/ACADEMY, Revell, Italeri don't want to discuss it, period. There was immense pressure put on them to turn the 1/48 Revell CH-47D kit into an MH-47 kit since they already had the data from the 1/72nd scale kit. No dice. They have a very different measure of what will bring "cha-ching" than we do. Armor and WWII German subjects rule the waves. Helicopters don't even come into sight. Sad but true. Believe me, the gentleman I know that advises them on kit production could sell binoculars to a blind man but he can't even get them to listen to his proposals about helicopter subjects. And believe me, he's a heavy hitter in modeling.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

Edited by Chief Snake
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The most famous and loved Helicopter of all time and we can't get a decent UH-1D/H, and by the looks, we never will.

What a joke.

:thumbsup:

Chris

But Chris, don't you know we are still in need of a good model of the late war subvariant of Bf-109G-14 that was manufactured in a cave and was discovered by the allies after the war. How can we not have this important aircraft in plastic yet. What a travesty!

Ray

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What's wrong with the Panda kit? :thumbsup:

There are obvious and subtle issues with the kit. But, with care it can be reasonable. Do a search in the archives or gallery for Gino's work. Obvious issues include over sized skin rivets, a baggage door in the tail boom that doesn't belong there, trenches for panel lines, main rotor blades are for a 212/UH-1N, tail rotor blades are for a UH-1N, transmission and controls poorly and incompletely rendered, windshield pierced with holes for out of place wipers, wrong instrument panel, yada yada yada. For the esoteric UH-1 fanatic are things like the angle of departure for the tail boom and the lack of corrective tilt in the transmission. I have had an earful from people being critical but hey, I flew on and crewed this helicopter and while it has shortcomings as a model it's at least something I can work with.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

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They say guns sell and we don't have a good AH-1G or given the going rate a re-release of the H-34 and AH-1W.

In their minds guns must be installed in tracked vehicles, that's why we see so much new armor being released. The H-34 can't be re-released as the molds were rendered unusable through wear and tear. An approach at a new tooled one was rebuffed with the admonition that it exists in 1/72. Looks like panning it up would be doable....

Can't speak of the AH-1W, re-release is an odd subject with these folks.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

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There are obvious and subtle issues with the kit. But, with care it can be reasonable. Do a search in the archives or gallery for Gino's work. Obvious issues include over sized skin rivets, a baggage door in the tail boom that doesn't belong there, trenches for panel lines, main rotor blades are for a 212/UH-1N, tail rotor blades are for a UH-1N, transmission and controls poorly and incompletely rendered, windshield pierced with holes for out of place wipers, wrong instrument panel, yada yada yada. For the esoteric UH-1 fanatic are things like the angle of departure for the tail boom and the lack of corrective tilt in the transmission. I have had an earful from people being critical but hey, I flew on and crewed this helicopter and while it has shortcomings as a model it's at least something I can work with.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

Also, just about every detail component is grossly overscale. The fabric troop seats scale out to around 6" thick, the metal tubing for their supports looks like 8" steel pipe, etc, etc. All can be addressed with some time and effort but the kit is generally a PITA to work with. Not a single component of the kit is usable out of the box.

Too bad about the lack of a new-tool kit. I know it is not as "cool" as yet another FW-190 or Me-190 re-pop but given how many nations flew the Huey, one would think that there would be a decent international market out there.

I too thought I read a rumor somewhere that Academy was going to release a Huey... bummer.

Edited by 11bee
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In their minds guns must be installed in tracked vehicles, that's why we see so much new armor being released. The H-34 can't be re-released as the molds were rendered unusable through wear and tear. An approach at a new tooled one was rebuffed with the admonition that it exists in 1/72. Looks like panning it up would be doable....

Can't speak of the AH-1W, re-release is an odd subject with these folks.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

One can wish. I am happy for your resin set H-34 set, just need some decals now. As to the molds, didn't the story go they bought a kit off ebay for that rebuild the molds to re-release the funny car kits?

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Actually the product development guy at Revell GmbH that I work with told me the H-34 mold was broken when it was dropped off a fork lift. It was never used enough to get much wear & tear. Consider that they've been using a lot of molds for 50+ years and they're not worn out.

J

Edited by Jennings
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Actually the product development guy at Revell GmbH that I work with told me the H-34 mold was broken when it was dropped off a fork lift. It was never used enough to get much wear & tear. Consider that they've been using a lot of molds for 50+ years and they're not worn out.

J

Sounds like they can't get their story straight. The Revell Rep I met at Columbus a few years back told me the molds were of inferior nature because they didn't fund good ones. At the time they were making the releases it was felt that it was extremely risking going into helicopter models, that was 1989. Since the molds were poor quality they warped quickly and you got the characteristic wavy rotor blades in the kits. He also said that the nature of the tooling was "old school", what ever that meant and that the actual injection work was done in Belgium on "old school" machinery that had been replaced by the time we had this discussion. All in all it sounds that they went the cheap route in hopes of not losing money.

For all we know the molds might actually be sitting some where and no one really knows it. Or they simply don't want to have another go at it, which is the typical story for helo kits across the board in this economic climate. It's not a tank and it's not some variation of a WWII German subject so it won't produce significant income.

The only consistency is the claim that the molds no longer exist and it is coming from different sources. May as well talk to a wall.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

Edited by Chief Snake
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Hi Chris

Do you have any other contacts than MRC? Maybe dropping a line to another manufacturer might be the ticket.

How about a Huey D/N with an extra set of German decals from WW2 in the box...just kidding.

Its hard to believe that the Huey being such an iconing machine noone has even thought of making one.....Didn't Hasegawa say that they were losing money on the Seaking and yet several versions have come out recently?

Just my two cents.....feels good just talking about it anyway.

Oliver

Edited by shark 64
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But Chris, don't you know we are still in need of a good model of the late war subvariant of Bf-109G-14 that was manufactured in a cave and was discovered by the allies after the war. How can we not have this important aircraft in plastic yet. What a travesty!

Ray

:wub:

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Hi Chris

Do you have any other contacts than MRC? Maybe dropping a line to another manufacturer might be the ticket.

How about a Huey D/N with an extra set of German decals from WW2 in the box...just kidding.

Its hard to believe that the Huey being such an iconing machine noone has even thought of making one.....Didn't Hasegawa say that they were losing money on the Seaking and yet several versions have come out recently?

Just my two cents.....feels good just talking about it anyway.

Oliver

The friend of mine is an intermediary with MRC/Academy, Revell and Italeri. What you really need to remember is that iconic means zero to these folks, they don't think in those terms. Their terms are monetary gain and the proven track to monetary gain is armor and WWII German subjects. Now for some reason they have thought to put out new B-17 kits in 1/72nd scale, a new venture but in an immensely popular scale. While the B-17 is in fact somewhat iconic my guess is that the WWII thing comes into play more than the romance of the Flying Fort. I think you also have to remember that WWII is a very heavy European experience, and that is part of their attraction to things from that era.

There were not many Europeans taking rides in Hueys in Vietnam. While Germans did and do make and fly UH-1's, Revell of Germany has not paid much attention to that.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

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The friend of mine is an intermediary with MRC/Academy, Revell and Italeri. What you really need to remember is that iconic means zero to these folks, they don't think in those terms. Their terms are monetary gain and the proven track to monetary gain is armor and WWII German subjects. Now for some reason they have thought to put out new B-17 kits in 1/72nd scale, a new venture but in an immensely popular scale. While the B-17 is in fact somewhat iconic my guess is that the WWII thing comes into play more than the romance of the Flying Fort. I think you also have to remember that WWII is a very heavy European experience, and that is part of their attraction to things from that era.

There were not many Europeans taking rides in Hueys in Vietnam. While Germans did and do make and fly UH-1's, Revell of Germany has not paid much attention to that.

Chris M

aka Chief Snake

Cobra Company

Also, as much as we bemoan the state of affairs with Huey kits, the casual Huey builder has quite a few models to choose from in a variety of scales. I was cautiously optimistic when Hobby Boss announced their new 1/72 Hueys and Cobras, but in reality the old 1/72 Italeri UH-1B is still the best OOB 1/72 Huey kit as far as I am concerned. The few mistakes, like the short rotor blades were repeated by Hobby Boss AND they made new ones (grrrr). Oh well, at least we have CC and Fireball Modelworks to help fill the gaps!

Ray

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That is too bad, i would pay gold to see an D/H of MRC, just imagining it with those amazing details of their UH-1C kit, wow. I know Dragon is bad, but not too bad, but definitly my UH-1H build will be a mix up between the Dragon and MRC UH-1C, including aftermarket parts and a huge amount of scratchbuild, just like Olivers huey(only in my dreams haha)...

This is the only option i have.... such a beauty and for me my favourite chopper, and there are no decent kits in 35th, no way...

Rod.

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