UH-60J – JASDF 40th Anniversary Decals

Hobby Collective, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

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The Japanese apply some spectacular special schemes to some of their aircraft, and the decal set reviewed here is a very good case in point. The helicopter’s background colours combined with spectacular serpentine dragons along the fuselage sides make for a most noticeable and interesting UH-60J.

Hobby Collective supply the decals sealed in cellophane with a roughly A-5 sized sheet of glossy paper that is the painting and markings guide. The coloured page covers painting and those decals linked to the overall scheme. Paint call-outs appear linked to the Gunze Sangyo range, but more usefully, they give FS-595 codes as well. The monochrome reverse side guides placement of the extensive stencilling included with the sheet. There is some information that will be lost to many users because the instructions have predominantly Japanese text. The instructions are adequate, but would benefit from being about twice the size, say A-4. Cartograf prints the decals, and as expected, they look to be superb.

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Thumbnail panels:

I thought that the sheet possibly covered two aircraft because it includes two pairs of dragons and two full sets of anti-glare and exhaust stain panels, and what I assume to be slip-resistant surfaces for maintenance crew. However, on checking the serial numbers overlaid on the dragons’ tails I realised the sheet caters for just one airframe. I assumed that extra dragons and black panels must be spares. However, whilst doing a search for images of the subject helicopter I Googled Scott Van Aitken’s review of the same decal set over at Modelling Madness and found a better explanation. Scott’s Japanese is obviously a lot better than mine is because he realised that the two sets were intended to cater for subtle shape differences between the Hasegawa and Fujimi UH-60 kits. Logically enough those marked with an F are for Fujimi and H for Hasegawa. This is a very thorough approach and I applaud it. However it also emphasises how useful the inclusion of an English (or almost any European language) translation would be.

This is a superbly produced set of some very striking anniversary markings. Larger instructions with some English translation would improve things however, as evidenced by my failure to realise markings for two different kits were included. I confess to being tempted to buy a Blackhawk* kit just to model this scheme despite it being one helicopter subject I would normally ignore!

Definitely recommended.

* The UH-60J is called the Rescue Hawk, Hasegawa is releasing a UH-60J with various resin and PE extras required by this version.

Thanks to Hobby Collective for this sample.

Text and Images Copyright © 2012 by Mark Davies
This Page Created on 1 May, 2012
Last updated 1 May, 2012

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