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Hobby Boss 1/48 CH-47A


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Just received the Hobby Boss 1/48 CH-47A. Overall, I'm very impressed (except for the price!). The shape appears to be correct (though I've not compared it to drawings). Surface detail is very nice and significantly better than the Italeri kit. The canopy is  perfectly clear and has scribed frames; Excellent. There will obviously be more versions as the fuselage halves are in two pieces to accommodate the later tail pylon. Interior soundproofing blankets are provided which is correct for a Vietnam era A model. The rotor blades are correct and are drooped (but not twisted). Cargo floor and ramp detail is excellent. Antennas are nominally correct, but they changed throughout their service life; check your sources.

 

There are a few minor issues, most of which should be easy to fix:

 

  • The wheels are too small. The service prototypes and an unknown number of early production aircraft had smaller dual wheels on the aft struts. It appears Hobby Boss used these
  • This leads to the second issue. The aft landing gears are incorrect for production A models. Production aircraft used a castering single wheel curved strut with the wheel facing outwards
  • No troop seats are provided; these were almost always carried in Vietnam
  • There is no detail in the ramp area. Stringers and frames are presented as square raised detail. There is a large amount of visible detail in this area on the actual helicopter
  • Rotor head detail is softer than the rest of the kit
  • There are a few other rivet-counter type details that you can fix if you wish

 

If you're going to build your model with the ramp down and are wondering where the door goes; it retracts into the ramp and can't be seen.

 

I'm happy that we've finally got an A model in 1/48 (If you wanted an A model from the Italeri kit you had to cross-kit the fuselage or figure out how to fill the large rectangular hole in the middle of the AH-47A fuselage.)

 

Again I'm very happy with this kit. Other than the price, I highly recommend this kit.

 

Mig

 

 

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