Tamiya 1/100 SH-3A/D Sea King

The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King (company designation S-61) is an American twin-engined anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft. A landmark design, it was one of the first ASW rotorcraft to use turboshaft engines.

The Sea King has its origins in efforts by the United States Navy to counter the growing threat of Soviet submarines during the 1950s. Accordingly, the helicopter was specifically developed to deliver a capable ASW platform; in particular, it combined the roles of hunter and killer, which had previously been carried out by two separate helicopters. The Sea King was initially designated HSS-2, which was intended to imply a level of commonality to the earlier HSS-1; it was subsequently redesignated as the SH-3A during the early 1960s.

Introduced to service in 1961, it was operated by the United States Navy as a key ASW and utility asset for several decades prior to being replaced by the non-amphibious Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk in the 1990s. In late 1961 and early 1962, a modified U.S. Navy HSS-2 Sea King was used to break the FAI 3 km, 100 km, 500 km, and 1000 km helicopter speed records. The Sea King also performed various other roles and missions such as search-and-rescue, transport, anti-shipping, medevac, plane guard, and airborne early warning operations.

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Tamiya put a lot of effort into producing aircraft kits in 1/100 scale. This was the same time they released a number of 1/50 kits as well, in an attempt to get the scale to become a standard. Unfortunately for them, it was not successful as 1/144 and 1/48 were too well ingrained.

While the 1/50 kits were reboxed as 1/48, Tamiya left the 1/100 kits as they were. This is one of at least two dozen kits Tamiya released. While not always easy to find, the series was reissued with this particular kit seeing the light of day again in 1994.

The kit has a fair cockpit with two generic a pair of cyclic controls and an instrument panel. Decals are provided for the panels. There is no cabin detail. Instead, there is a tube that glues to the floor on which a dipping sonar can be attached. The main rotor is pretty basic, but adequate for the scale. Cabin windows fit from the inside. When the fuselage halves are joined, they trap a shaft for the tail rotor.

The kit does have a couple of options. One is for the upper fuselage radome as found on British Sea Kings. The other is for the outer landing gear housings/sponsons with or without the floatation bags. Only the USN SH-3 uses these bags. The kit does come with the proper short, unsupported horizontal stabilizer. Since this is an early SH-3A/D, there is no spray diffuser in front of the engine intakes.

Instructions are entirely in Japanese, but the drawings are quite well done so no issue when building it. Three markings options are provided. Two are in white over light gull grey. These depict the box are 'Old 66' which was involved in several Apollo capsule recoveries while the other is an early Japanese HSS-2. The third is an overall dark blue Royal Navy Sea King HAS.1. The decal sheet is nicely printed, but I'd give it a couple of coats of clear decal film before using them as they are surely not in the best of shape.

I built one of these back many years ago and it since succumbed to a move. It makes into a very nice model and while the scale is a bit different from the norm, it shouldn't impede anyone from building one of these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_SH-3_Sea_King

November 2024

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