Revell's 1/48 scale
Chinook HC Mk. II

by Jacob Joensen

Trumpeter's 1/32 SBD-5 Dauntless is available online from Squadron.com

This is my rendition of a RAF Chinook HC Mk. II in service during the ISAF campaign in Afghanistan, in a British context known as “Operation Herrick”. The kit is Revell’s 1/48 Chinook HC Mk. I (#04641), a reissue of Italeri’s HC.1/CH-47C (#2662), converted into Mk. II-status.

The starting point for the project was a personal motivation. By the end of August 2010 I deployed to the Helmand Province in Afghanistan to serve as a combat medic with the Royal Danish Army’s ISAF contingent. During my six months in theatre, I flew with Chinooks a couple of times – not exactly an everyday experience for a regular Danish soldier – but most notably I ‘met’ Chinooks a number of times (too many) when evacuating wounded or killed personnel from the “Green Zone” to the field hospital in Camp Bastion.

My experiences inspired me to build a series of models including aircraft, which I either flew with or saw in action. Accordingly, I decided to depict Chinook no. ZH893/HH, as I saw it on at least three occasions, two of them being medical evacuations. I have this thoroughly photo documented by some colleagues – inherently I was preoccupied – and thus my reference material was quite solid.

The Revell kit was the one to go for in this project. For extra detailing and to complete the conversion I got Italeri’s “CH-47 Chinook Detail Set” (#26002), including resin- and PE-parts, and some additional PE from Eduard. Moreover, I applied quite a number of scratch built details.

Construction commenced with the cargo/personnel compartment and the cockpit. It constitutes an individual tube with floor, walls, and ceiling to be placed inside the vertically split fuselage. In real life, the compartment is arranged according to task, and I chose a rather neutral setup based on random photos off the internet just to imply its potential.

In regard with detail, I found the molded seatbelts rather boring and replaced them with straps made from Tamiya-tape – although you hardly see them on the finished model. In addition, the walls abaft by the ramp are simple compared with the real thing, so this became the subject for some scratch work ‘busying’ it all up. In contrast to the seats, this area is highly visible, so I found it reasonable to give it some attention.

The fuselage was rather demanding. Firstly, some minor corrections, e.g. replacing the antenna sockets on the port side, was needed, and secondly the fit of the fuselage halves, engines, and front section (clear part) was poor and needed quite a bit of filling and sanding.

A major exterior task was to make credible dustbin sand filters, as I didn’t find a suitable aftermarket solution. (By the time my model was almost done, 3D printed filters had become available). Thus, I built them from scratch using wooden round stick as a core on which I attached details made from plastic card, mesh, self-adhesive foil, PE-parts from the drawer, and – not to be forgotten – buckets from Tamiya’s 1/48 scale jerry can-set. The photo below shows the sand filter at its initial stage.

Another big task – that is, a considerable strain, which I exposed myself to – was to add raised rivets to the – in my opinion – monotonous surfaces, especially because rivets are quite significant on real Chinooks. HGW Silver Rivet Decals worked perfectly for the job, but unfortunately, the subtle effect came out too subtle (that is, almost invisible)

The base color is WEM “Dark Green” (BS241). For variation and for highlighting panels I added Tamiya’s ditto (XF-81), which it is slightly lighter.

The weathering effects was achieved with black wash, salt-technique, artists’ oils, and pastels. The kit’s sheet, a sheet from Model Alliance, and a few single decals from the drawer supplied the markings.

The photos show the almost finished model prior to weathering.

Building this model has been a somewhat therapeutic process. Browsing through photos brought back memories of good and bad, and whilst researching both “ZH893/HH” and Chinooks in general I learned a lot more about the range of Chinooks’ work in Afghanistan, than I already knew.

It irks me that the quality of the Revell/Italeri kit is poor, because I would really like to build another 1/48 Chinook, for instance the legendary RAF “Bravo November”. Thus, a well-detailed kit with raised rivets and different configuration options, including dustbin sand filters, is desirable.

Model and Text Copyright © 2016 by Jacob Joensen
Page Created 14 September, 2016
Last Updated 14 September, 2016

Back to HyperScale Main Page