MBB Bo-105/PAH-1

Esci Kit No 4054

I picked up this kit during one of Collectors Lanes’ annual summer clearance sales and it sat for a fair while until I decided to do the model. The kit is molded in dark green plastic, with recessed lines where appropriate. Various parts are provided to do Spanish, Dutch and German machines. Only the German version is armed, with an overhead sight, and the 6 HOT missiles in sets of 3 per side.

Construction:

Construction started, as is normally the case, with the cockpit and interior. The interior comprises aft bulkhead, with a bench seat and two single seats forward for pilot and copilot. There is also a cargo compartment floor and ceiling as one of the options is to open up the rear bay. Front end details include the cyclic, collective and yaw pedals, with center console and an instrument panel with boxes and stuff on the back side. Too bad the instruments are represented with decals. Oddly enough the front seats have shoulder belts but no lap belts. These were added by painting masking tape strips. Same was applied to the rear bench. Painted and washed with black water color, this doesn’t look too shabby. Add some wires behind the intrument panel, and an upper switch panel to cover over the joint, and we have a nice little front office.

There is also a transmission gearbox, with the lower rotor controls, swash linkages and such. This is installed above the cargo bay ceiling.

I tried some creativity by removing the pilots’ door, before sandwiching the interior and cargo bay parts into the two halves of the fuselage. This joint required some care as the parts were a tad wide. A little sanding with a stick, and off we go. Since I wasn’t opening the rear bay doors, I wasn’t too particular about the fit of the floor and ceiling back there. Do the best you can and judicious use of filler takes care of the rest. Don’t forget to stick the rear fin into the fuselage halve before you glue them together. A little ballast up front wouldn’t hurt either.

Having gotten the fuselage together, I put on the front bubble, masked every thing with Bare metal foil and sprayed with Gunze H-303 (FS34102). Good solid base coat. This was followed by masking the camo pattern with Maskol, and then spraying with Xtracolor X-120 (FS34258). Landing skids, Rotor head, tail skid and some other bits and pieces are to be black, but I substituted Tamiya X63 German Grey, which I always use instead of flat black. I find flat black looks too stark and German Grey looks like weathered flat black.

Moving on, my references show some sort of mass balances on each rotor, just about where the blade widens, so that was my next scratchbuild effort. I have seen a 1/32 model done where the fellow used bent wire in a U shape, with balls of glue on the ends. This would certainly have been simpler, but not as detailed. I elected to make brackets (upper and lower) out of strip stock and then made 8 weight arms from sprue and epoxy balls. One other problem, minor really, was replacing the missing exhaust tubes on the fuselage sides. (Lost at some point) These were remade from sprue of approximately the right diameter. They may be a tad too big, but hey, I don’t have a real one to measure. They look ok to me.

Final assembly involved installing the rest of the glass, some of which didn’t really fit,(tad too small all around and not curved enough at the top) and putting small wire pins into the pilots door, matched to holes in the window frame. Door posed open. Installation of the HOT tubes followed, with the support struts being added to steady the whole assembly. Skids glued on, after replacing the pilots step with fine music wire on both sides. Tail skid, antenna blister under the boom, and all the rest of the niggly little bits.

A quick coat of Future, allowed to cure for 24 hours, and we were ready to decal. Having been bitten once before by Esci decals, a coat of decal sealer was applied, just in case. Markings on this helo are fairly simple, and the kit decals were used. The maltese crosses were slightly out of register, but trimming took care of that problem. After letting the decals dry, and washing with fresh water, the model was again gloss coated with future. Based on the reference pictures, weathering was kept to a minimum as these appear to be very clean aircraft. Even the exhaust staining is minor. Once the various items were weathered to my satifaction, Gunze dullcoat was applied to dull down the appearance.

All in all, a pleasant little kit to build.

Peter G. Nebelung