Fly | 32011: 1/32 Westland Wessex HU.5
Reviewed by Andrew Birnie
It is seldom that a kit announcement has you do a double take as your jaw slowly opens and saliva drips out the corner of your mouth Homer Simpson-style, but this certainly happened to me when I first saw that Fly Models of the Czech Republic were to release a 1/32 Westland Wessex, in not one but two versions; the HC.2 (32010), and HU.5 (32011) - the latter the subject of this review.
The HU.5 saw service primarily with the Royal Navy as a troop carrier, but also saw limited service with the RAF. While not the prettiest that took to the skies, it certainly has presence.
The main airframe is very nicely moulded in seventy-four grey plastic, with great surface detail. Not all the parts are used, for example part F1 is only applicable to the HAS.3 version - hopefully a future release.
The clear parts on two sprues have excellent clarity. There are sixty-five wonderfully cast resin pieces with superb detail, two sheets of photo etch parts which will keep anybody busy for quite some time, and rounding up the parts is a sheet of paper providing parts for the troop seats and pilot harnesses - absolutely everything you could need all in one box.
As the two kits contain the same parts and instruction booklet, this requires the opening up of the three larger window holes in the troop compartment, the openings are marked out on the inside of the fuselage. On page six of the instructions you are told which windows to insert for the HU.5 on its port side, however on page ten, referring to the starboard side, the instructions make no mention of the correct window to fit, it should be CP-A3.
The kit provides decals for four aircraft:
- XT765 - a Royal Navy troop carrier painted overall dark green.
- XT772 "Green Parrot" - Admirals Barge.
- XT765 (again) - this time as a Royal Navy SAR bird with a large Union Flag painted on its nose, though this livery only appeared after it was partially scrapped, there are serials for XT471 which flew as RN SAR missions, but the serial is too large, so I would suggest purchasing Xtradecal sheet X32022.
- XS402 in the markings of an all yellow RAF SAR aircraft, this Wessex served with the Royal Navy, and was painted in said markings for a museum exhibit, the RAF used HAR.2s for these missions, and all seem to carry, apart from a Bahrain-based Wessex with Arabic script on the fuselage side, XXII Squadron badges on the tail, which aren't included in the kit, however, Fundekals are releasing a set of decals for two RAF all yellow SAR helicopters, among others, which you can make from this kit, just follow the instructions for the windows for the HC.2 option.
This is an astounding kit, great value for money, which will build into a model everyone will pay attention to, I feel very lucky Fly has produced this kit, hopefully you will too, treat yourself, you won't regret it for a nanosecond.
Review model kindly supplied by Fly.
© Andrew Birnie 2016
This review was published on Friday, January 22 2016; Last modified on Monday, January 25 2016