Italeri 1/72 CH-146 Griffon

 Since this kit was bought at a swap meet and devoid of decals (pays to check the box before forking over the funds), it became this years helo model. I don't build many helos, though I do like the genre. For some reason they just don't get the bench time that other kits do. Anyway, this one looked pretty nice. You could tell by fitting some of the parts together that this is definitely based on an earlier Bell 212/UH-1N kit. Much of the fuselage is the same, only the rotor head and gearbox area seems to be much different from the earlier type.

First thing was to build up the interior. This was painted in a darkish grey as per instructions after many of the components that were to be the same color were installed. This included the three piece seats, the controls and rudder pedals as well as some framework in the nose area. I managed to break a couple of the rudder pedals getting them off the plastic trees. The connections are a bit large so take care. The next area was the roof, the back cabin wall and the aft seats. These were all painted in Israeli AF green with aluminum bits. The fit of the stanchions for the forward canvas seat was not very good. Mine lean and I don't think they are supposed to. The instrument panel was painted flat black and drybrushed. At this time the interior was fit into the fuselage halves. 'Fit' is term used loosely.

The rotor mast was then assembled, painted and glued in place on the upper side of the interior roof.  The next step was to install the cockpit door transparencies. Actually this should have been done before the fuselage halves were glued together, but I forgot. The interior top was then glued in place, again, fit was not that great. The roof section was next. Again, fit is pretty poor. Much detail was expended in filling gaps. Are you seeing a trend in fit? This sloppy fit was found to be the case with just about all the major airframe components. On the real helo, this would result in gaps 3-4 inches wide in some cases. This is particularly true of the parts that make up the engine exhaust, engine covers, and gearbox/rotor shaft fairings. I adjusted the parts the best I could to enhance fit, but it wasn't enough. After getting the gearbox cover on, the rotor shaft was found to be too far forward and there is no way the rotor head is able to turn as it is jammed up against the forward section of the upper opening.

Now, let me back up a bit. Before installing the roof section, I painted the upper eyebrow windows with clear green and glued them in place. Fit was not good. In fact, one of them fell into the helo after all the doors had been glued on. Getting it back in place with be a real trial. I also found the windscreen to be a less than perfect fit. The clear parts for the side doors were a strange mixture. On the very small doors, the clear bits fit perfectly. Same for the left cabin door. Not the same for the right. The clear bits are not marked left or right for these parts so I'm at a loss. I glued the cabin doors in place. Fit wasn't bad, but there were gaps, again, more prevalent on the right side, and I'm positive I didn't install it upside down! The tailplanes fit well and were then glued in place as were the landing skids. The skids have several ejector pin marks that will need filled and sanded. By this time, I didn't think it was worth the effort as no way would this be a contest kit. With the airframe basically complete, I masked off the transparencies and a few other places and headed for the paint shop.