| AIRWOLF helicopter as seen in the AIRWOLF TV series |
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| Airwolf is © Universal City Studios Inc. | |
| Reworking and re-detailing the Aoshima 1:48 Airwolf helicopter kit | |
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| Finally, a new Airwolf kit! After the AMT kit of the 90's which was crap in terms of accuracy and details Aoshima releases a very decent kit with amazing details, a complete interior an photo etched parts for the limited edition.
At first glace I loved the kit, but looking into detail, I discovered a few parts that were literally screaming for modification. I got myself tons of reference photos of the "real" modified Bell222 helicopter and I then began to scale pictures, compare and find the issues... |
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| building process: | |
| click on each pic to get a hi-res image | |
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both the upper and the lower air-intakes were too narraw and had a slightly wrong shape => power tooling! |
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also, the edge of the camera-windowframe was too thick. You can see clearly that shape and angle of the nose-part points up too much. |
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So, I cut 1,5 mm at the bottom window area and bent the nose down a little. I used some styrene stripes for reinforcement. |
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A layer of light gray over white base coat for the inside: |
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Nicely detailed cockpit & computers, but unfortunately you won't be seeing them as soon as the fuselage is glued together. |
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Air intakes in new shape - filled and roughly sanded. |
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the white end caps of the wheel housing are in wrong shape, too. The needed to curved more smoothly and sharper at the edges. Due to my correction of Airwolf's nose (sort of rhino-plastic surgery...) the bottom window needed some modification. All parts in this kit fit together perfectly, hence the modification any time you dare chance something... |
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All clear parts in place. Notice the metal grill inside the upper air-intakes. |
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First test-fit: Almost looks like the real thing... |
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Like the real thing, my Airwolf needed the overalpping stripe which connects the turbine-part with the "real" helicopter fuselage. At this point I noticed that the turbine-parts needed to be about 2-3 mm thicker on each side, but I decided to leave it this way. It would have caused too much trouble cutting the whole thing off and attaching it differently without ruining the kit seriously... |
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the radar cone was replaced by a scratched one as well as the hinge-joints for the front doors. some filling an shape correction of the nose |
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masking tape set in place and polishing of the fuselage. |
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The kit's part was far off, so I scratched the characteristic nose-add-on myself. Now it finally has this evil look... |
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nose in profile + I scribed the window frame. |
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Here a front shot. I filled the place for the fuel-intake was meant to be, cause the position was slightly off. Added the overlapping stripe for the nose add-on. |
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Got this detail from some Bell222 photos I watched. Some styrene stripe + spacer. |
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Fuel-intake and the 2 other antennas (no idea what they are actually there for) in place. |
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added some rivets around the windshield... And finally - base coat |
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this illustrates my problem with the turbine housings, that should have another 2-3 mm an each side.
I just photoshopped the second picture... if it just was so easy with the real model...
As the first pictures in this thread show, the turbines are directly cast in one piece with the fuselage half, this doesn't make it easier to modify... I finally decided to leave it the way it is. |
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Here you can see the familiar colors: I tried to mix just a drop of gray into the white color (for the scale-effect) and mixed metallic black with some gray. That was the most demanding task: That phontom gray metallic-color of Airwolf is a MUST for the model to look like the real thing. I wanted it to have the metallic-effect, but too much would have made it look stupid. |
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After some masking tape was removed and everything checked I gave it a clearcoat with 50% satin/ 50% gloss. aluminum, red and other colored stuff added. |
