Hasegawa 1/72 SH-60B Seahawk

  The Sikorsky SH-60/MH-60 Seahawk (or Sea Hawk) is a twin turbo shaft engine, multi-mission United States Navy helicopter based on the airframe of the United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk and a member of the Sikorsky S-70 family. The most significant modification is a hinged tail to reduce its footprint aboard ships.

The U.S. Navy uses the H-60 airframe under the model designations SH-60B, SH-60F, HH-60H, MH-60R, and MH-60S. Able to deploy aboard any air-capable frigate, destroyer, cruiser, fast combat support ship, amphibious assault ship, or aircraft carrier, the Seahawk can handle antisubmarine warfare (ASW), undersea warfare (USW), anti-surface warfare (ASUW), naval special warfare (NSW) insertion, search and rescue (SAR), combat search and rescue (CSAR), vertical replenishment (VERTREP), and medical evacuation (MEDEVAC). All Navy H-60s carry a rescue hoist for SAR/CSAR missions.   History provided by Wikipedia.

The model comes molded in several sprues of Lt. Grey plastic and one sprue in clear for the windscreens.  There are no mold defects or injector marks that need attention to the finial build.  The parts are molded crisp and with great detail and the engraved panel lines look good to the scale.  The kit comes with a complete cockpit and crew area with good detail given to the seats and console.   Included in the parts are a drop sonar and a drop torpedo.  The pilot’s door and side cabin door can be positioned open.

The instructions give good exploded step by step drawings and a painting guide that calls out for federal standard paint codes.  The decals are printed with no errors and give you the option of two schemes a low vis grey and a high vis white over grey version.  The decals provide instrument faces for both the control panel and the center console.

I started with the cockpit and crew area first.  I painted the floor, seats and control yokes flat black and the sides of the inner wall Lt. Ghost Grey FS 36375 and then glued the two main halves of the fuselage together.  Being that this is the Navy version of the Blackhawk there are lots of extras to be glued to the body of the SH-60B, sonar arrays and weapons pylons. 

 I decided to build mine with the doors open so where the instructions indicated I cut the side sliding door in two parts and removed a small panel in the door to allow it to slide back over and around the torpedo pylon. 

Next came the main rotor.  Very nicely done in detail.  The main rotor shaft and the control connectors all add good detail to a kit of this scale.   There were no fit problems to speak of and not much use of putty.

With all of the sub assemblies done and a very tricky masking around the windows I chose to go with the low vis grey over grey version. 

I started with the lightest of the grays on the bottom of the SH-60B FS 36495 Testors MM Lt. Grey.  Then masking off the bottom of the model, taking care to mask around the sonar blisters I moved on to the primary color FS 36375 Testors MM Lt. Ghost Grey and painted the entire model this color.  Next was the darkest grey on the top FS 36320 Testors MM Dk. Ghost Grey. 

A quick shot of Testors gloss coat to ready it for the decals.  The decals went on with ease.  Even for decals this old there were no problems with adhering to the contours of the model. 

All in all once completed this kit makes up into a really good model of the Navy’s version of the Seahawk.  Modelers of any experience level can get good results if they take their time with assembly and painting.  I have another one of these in the build process with a photo-etch detail set and I plan on doing it in the white over grey scheme.

 Wikipedia and Squadron's H-60 Blackhawks in Action #133.

Shawn Payne

April 2010

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