ICM 1/48 UH-60A Blackhawk, previewed by Scott Van Aken

The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is a four-blade, twin-engine, medium-lift military utility helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft. Sikorsky submitted a design for the United States Army's Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System (UTTAS) competition in 1972. The Army designated the prototype as the YUH-60A and selected the Black Hawk as the winner of the program in 1976, after a fly-off competition with the Boeing Vertol YUH-61.

Named after the Native American war chief Black Hawk, the UH-60A entered service with the U.S. Army in 1979, to replace the Bell UH-1 Iroquois as the Army's tactical transport helicopter. This was followed by the fielding of electronic warfare and special operations variants of the Black Hawk. Improved UH-60L and UH-60M utility variants have also been developed.

Major variants include the Navy's SH-60 Seahawk, the Air Force's HH-60 Pave Hawk, the Coast Guard's MH-60 Jayhawk and the civilian S-70. In addition to use by U.S. armed forces, the UH-60 family has been exported to several nations and produced under contract in Japan as the Mitsubishi H-60.

THE KIT

Basically, the UH-60A was the initial production version of the troop carrying/cargo version of the helicopter. It has completely supplanted the older and long lived UH-1 Huey and all the different variants save for the AH-1 versions. The base A model is still in service though it has had several upgrades over the years.

This is a fairly large kit and comes in a large box. My kit arrived from Kansas City with one end of the box rather badly crushed. Fortunately, the kit itself appears unscathed thanks to not taking up much space in the overside kit box.

Released in 2025 from a 2024 tooling, there have been several other variants released with each boxing having additional parts to make the variant boxed. This kit has a number of sprues common with other versions with specific parts not used for the A model. It even includes a new fuselage half. One would expect a pretty complete cockpit and cabin and one gets it. There are decals for the instrument panel and consoles.

The kit has a single-piece cockpit/cabin floor with all the various bits including the extensive cabin seats attaching to it. Initially the cabin seats attach to the overhead piece and later on are attached to the floor. Each of these seats has a separate back, seat and separate legs, making this probably the most tedious part of the build. Especially when the seat frames and the canvas bits are a different color.

There are several holes that will need to be opened. Some of them are shallow divots that will be easy to open. Others require the use of a ruler to properly determine where they should be drilled. Be sure to keep your 0.8 mm drill bit handy. The aft bulkhead is then put in place, the tail gear assembly built and the interior and tail gear trapped between the fuselage halves. Then the lower fuselage section is assembled and attached.

The tailplanes are next followed by the forward upper fuselage, the cockpit doors and the cockpit clear bits. Next are the construction and installation of the exhaust, along with the rest of the upper fuselage. Cabin doors and windows are next, then the main landing gear. By this time, we are ready for the fuselage fiddly bits, which are the reason you drilled all those holes. More measured holes are required for the upper part of the fuselage and after attaching all of those, we move to the main rotor. Once that is attached, we are ready for masking and paint. The kit provides a template so you can cut your own masks, but lazy people such as I will buy those already to go.

instructions are superb with very well drawn construction steps: 96 of them. All paint info is generic and ICM paints. The three options are overall US Dark Green or Camouflage Green. I always thought they were olive drab or what ICM calls Green Brown. Some insight would be appreciated. First option is the box art plane as flown during Afghanistan in 2005. The other two are Army National Guard planes from Kentucky in 2009 and Montana in 2013. The decal sheet is well printed. The images of the helos in the markings diagram are so dark that one has difficulty telling exactly where the marking fits as the little red lines practically disappear unless you have a very bright light.

I don't pay all that much attention to helicopter models, but I believe the only other 1/48 UH-60 kit is by Academy and Italeri and I believe they are less expensive than this one. Probably less well appointed as well. ICM has a reputation for producing well designed and detailed kits and I fully expect this one to be a beauty when finished.

KIT #:	48163
PRICE:	around $90.00
DECALS:	Three options
REVIEWER:	Scott Van Aken
NOTES:	2025 release of 2024 tooling