Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: MPM
No: 72036
Item: Sikorsky HO3S-1
 
 

I’m at the moment (Nov. ´96) building the famous Sikorsky S-51 helicopter.

The MPM kit are a low pressure injection kit. As with most other kits in their range the detail on the fuselage are acceptable with fine recessed panel lines.

It takes a lot of cleaning up before you get the mating surfaces fit as they should.

When it comes to the small parts it’s worse. The parts are not fully moulded, warped, coarse and full of excesive plastic to clean up.

To get a finished, ”semi” scaled kit I had to scratch build the main parts of the interior, a totally new tail rotor ”gear”, main rotor hub & rods, hoist plus steps.

I also had to cut a slot in the fuselage to be able to move and angle the main landing gear about two milimeters forward, to obtain a straight trailing edge and to get the right vertical angle to the shock absorber leg struts...

As with most MPM kits is there an Eduard etched brass detail set covering instrument panels, console, rudder pedals, steps (that has no resemblance to the original) and antennae.

One interesting thing is that you can choose between either a fully glazed cockpit or just the front window.

To get the fully glazed model you will have to use your razor saw and cut the main body in half  :-) to be able to fit the two part clear vacuformed cockpit section.

Othervise you have to paint the windows on the fuselage.

I glued some lead weights under the cockpit floor to ensure that the kit would rest on the frontwheel, but I think it was unnecessarily.

When it comes to the decals they are of good thin quality, but not transparent and they responds well to Micro-Set.

You can choose between a Marines squadron MAMS 33, Japanese Sea, 1950-53 and a Navy squadron HU-1, 1950-53.

The only flaw is that the red bar on the insignias are out of register.

To sum up I think this kit is well worth trying if you are a ”plastic surgeon” like me and like a challenge from time to time.

If you are a newbie I wouldn’t recommend this kit because if you don’t have the basic skills that this kit demands, it will certainly end in the dustbin....
 

Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: MPM
No: 72045
Item: Sikorsky R-4B ( HNS-1 )
 
 

I've just finished MPM's little R-4 helicopter. (Dec. ´96)

It takes a lot of patience and skill to finaly come up with an acceptable kit.
That's because as with most short run injection kits, of problems with the small and crisp parts.

The fuselage and main rotor blades looks good in shape but the rest of the parts are nearly useless to make an scalemodel of the original Sikorsky R-4.

I had to scratchbuild all three landing gears (the tailgear has no resemblance to the original), welded tube tail, mainrotor hub and some interior parts.

There are also some etched brass parts in the kit such as seat belts, pedals and gratings for the engine compartment.

The cockpit glazing consists of four vacuum formed parts that you have to cut out and puzzle into a finished "greenhouse".

I had some severe problem in this area and didn't get a 100% fit of the parts. I had to insert a piece of styrene to fill the gap that occured when I tried to align the parts.

Still there where a step between the glass and the "roof". Of course this will be a crucial obstacle for the inexperienced modeller.

The decals are of the usual good quality and covers a Olive Drab/Grey R-4B from USAAF, Tinian, 1945 and a Blue/Grey HNS-1 from U.S. Coastal Guard, 1944.

My choice was to build one of the four HNS-1's that were in U.S. Navy service.

The problem is that I have no reference material on the colour and markings of this subject, so I sent a query to the newsgroup Rec.Models.Scale.

The answer I've got was that one preserved "specimen" at a museum was all over dark blue.

I know that in 1945 were the Glossy Sea Blue widely adopted.

Since the main part of the fuselage were fabric i painted the kit in Semi-gloss Sea Blue.

After the decalling was done I airbrushed the fabric sections with Humbrol's Flat Cote.

I wouldn't recommend this kit to a beginner.

I have problems to understand how it could be built right out of the box.

But... if You are experienced and would like to add an R-4 to your collection
...Go for it!

/Hawk

...more to come.