Revell 1/32 UH-1D Iroquois (Huey)

By Scott Murphy

This is Revell's 1960s kit. Although good for its time, it took a fair amount of work to bring the finished product up to today's standards. This one is made by Revell Germany and a constantly recurring problem I had with it was the brittleness of the plastic. It was quite frustrating to have to be constantly repairing broken kit pieces as I was still constructing the kit. To this day I have to be very gently laying the model down on its skids to keep from re-breaking them!

All of that aside, I fleshed out the interior quite a bit. I ground the instrument panel flat and rebuilt it with Waldron instruments, switches, scratch built placards, instrument bezels and other details. The kit seats were very basic so I substituted Cobra™ resin armored seats. The jump seats in back were detailed and seat belts added. I sprayed green "The Detailer" onto the overhead windows from inside followed by a coat of future to make them transparent again.

This version of the "Huey" was the unarmed transport version. I found a couple of 1/35 (close enough) M-60s from the spares box and built the flexible gun mounts from styrene. I built the ammo storage bin, flexible ammo feed track and several ammo boxes from styrene stock. Verlinden PE ammo belts rounded out the armament. 1/48 .50 cal scales out very closely to 1/32 7.62 mm.

The kit did come with a good engine and transmission. I added various small details and wiring and plumbing. The engine bay doors are screened on the side to provide cooling to the engine. I removed the plastic from these openings and replaced it with brass mesh.

Model Master II enamels were used for finishing. The decals were very old and no longer useable. I made a new set using MS PowerPoint. I downloaded the 1st Cav emblem from the internet and printed it on white decal film. Helicopters are notorious "leakers". The old saying is "don't worry if it leaks, start worrying when it stops!" I weathered the exterior with pastels and liberal amounts of black wash to simulate oil and hydraulic leaks.

© Scott Murphy

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This article was published on Wednesday, July 20 2011; Last modified on Saturday, May 14 2016