FCM 48067: SH-3D/H Sea King

A nice addition to their line and one that takes advantage of a fairly new kit is this one by FCM on Brazilian Navy Sea Kings. There are three options, two of them SH-3Ds and one SH-3H. The main visual difference is that the H model has a larger horizontal stabilizer with a supporting strut. The D has a shorter, unsupported version. Of course there are differences in avionics as well, but those are not easily seen.

There are currently two very good kits for this sheet. One is an older tooling from, I believe, the 1990s by Hasegawa. This one is generally released as an SH-3H, though they do a British Sea King boxing as well, which has the shorter stab. The other is the newly released Airfix version that has gotten a lot of positive press. I've not seen it so cannot say if it also includes the H tailplane.

The three options cover a variety of schemes and equipment. The initial one is from 1973 and is in the early scheme of light gull grey with a white underside. Note that you will have to paint the red tail band and the black, yellow, and dark blue tail stripes on all the options.

Next is one from 2008. Like the initial offering, this is an SH-3D though with a new overall medium sea grey color scheme. Note that this one has the spray shield in front of the engine intakes

The third option is an SH-3H from the 2010 time frame. This one is also overall medium sea grey, but this time with black instead of white lettering. FCM provides full stencils for both lettering options. All three of these planes operated out of Rio de Janeiro.

The decals themselves are superbly printed by Serigraf and are well up to modern standards in terms of thinness and opacity. If you are planning a 1/48 Sea King build, you may well want to consider this sheet for that project.

April 2024

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