NPPU-80 for Ka-50 Ka-52 Helicopter

North Star Models, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

Eduard's 1/72 Avia B.534 IV serie Weekend Edition is available online from Squadron.com

Both the Ka-50 and Ka-52 are appealing modelling subjects, in part because they have a number of unique features when compared to the majority of attack helicopter designs. Both helicopters have the NPPU-80 as their integral cannon armament, and it is a major feature since it is exposed along with it traverse and elevation/depression mechanism.

There are five Ka-50 kits I am aware of in “The One True Scale”. There was a truly awful parody from Esci, re-boxed by AMT, and best forgotten. Four far better kits are fortunately available. Italeri’s kit has been re-boxed by Bilek, Revell, and Tamiya, and what is probably an unlicensed ‘knock-off’ copy by CC Lee. Zvezda’s kit has similarities to the Italeri kit, but it is tooled differently with a common rear fuselage for both Ka-50 and Ka-52. Dragon and Hobby Boss have also released kits, with Ark Models re-boxing the Hobby Boss example with some new resin parts. The Ka-52 is a little less well served in 1/72 scale with only three kits as far as I know. They are by A-Model, Zvezda, and Italeri; with Italeri’s kit again being re-boxed by Revell and Tamiya.

I have owned both the Dragon & Italeri Ka-50 kits. Both have simplified cannon detail, and a Google search of other brand Ka-50 and Ka-52 kits suggests the others are no better in this regard. So this is certainly an area in which any of the kits mentioned above can be enhanced by a more detailed cannon installation such as North Star’s reviewed here.

North Star is a Latvian company I first heard of a month or so ago. I placed an order with them and my goods arrived in perfect order in New Zealand within 10 days; so order from them with confidence.

The NPPU-80 set comes in a small re-sealable cellophane bag enclosing a folded A4 sheet of instructions, a card stiffener, three re-sealable plastic bags of resin parts, and one with a further card stiffener and two PE frets. I did note that the pack’s colour printed header had the stock number NS72019, whereas on the North Star’s website it is NS72049 (NS72019 being German wheel chocks).

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The quality of resin casting and PE production is very good, as is the lovely turned brass gun barrel. There are some very small resin and PE parts, many of which need to fit into a quite small area, so care will be needed, as will a clear understanding of what goes where; but more on that later.

The end result should be a very appealing miniature MPPU-80 installation that is far superior to any injected kit item, as these North Star Models’ images show.

The instructions are in English, include a parts map, and use nicely drawn constructional drawings (presumably CAD-produced).

No colour call-outs are provided, but the images on North Star’s website of the real gun installation cover this aspect off.

So far all is well and good, and you might expect me to end the review here with a conclusion recommending the set. I shall be recommending the set, but must first cover off its only real weakness, this being the instructions.
Within the constructional drawings red and blue ink is used for the parts numbers and various dashed-line arrows respectively. Unfortunately, in many cases these are so faint as to be barely visible; even when I viewed them under magnification. I feel this is definite area for improvement.

Further problems include the fact that PE parts numbers 1-5 & 7-9 do not appear in the instructions at all as far as I can see.

I think these parts may be intended to represent the hydraulic hoses apparent in the images of the real thing, but they do not appear in North Star’s. These hoses are probably best created with lead wire anyway, using photos of the real gun as a guide.

So, despite being nicely drawn, the instructions need some very careful interpretation; and magnification is will be essential for many people. The instructions would be improved if the parts were coloured in the drawings to provide contrast between PE and resin parts, whilst larger drawings in some, and bolder print in all, cases would also help matters.

However, all is not lost, as the images on North Star Model’s website of the assembled components; particularly the CAD images and several photos of the real cannon are all helpful supplements to the instructions.

I can understand that as a small producer North Star may have limited resources to produce top-quality printed instructions. Instead I think they should make more use of their website and provide a digital supplement to their basic printed instructions. They have obviously used CAD to make this set’s masters, so this should not be too hard to do for sets such as the PPU-80 where clear instructions are essential. A viewable and/or downloadable PDF would be good, or simply post the instructions on the website.

North Star does not advise which brand kits their replacement gun is optimised for, if indeed it is optimised for any. If the set is optimised for the most accurate kit I cannot say which it is, as I do not have enough knowledge of the Ka-50/52 and available kits. I would guess that a commercially driven choice would favour optimising the set to fit the Italeri/Revell/Tamiya kit as the most widely sold; but again this is speculation on my part.

I can report that North Star’s parts will be close to a perfect fit for Dragon’s kit, as I have a copy of this and did an eyeball fit test.

To be honest, I should think it will not be too demanding to fit the set to any brand, but wish North Star had given some indication of if the set is optimised for one or all available kits.

Some basic surgery is required to remove the kit gun-mount and its surrounding structure in order to replace it with North Star’s resin part; although their instructions do not mention this as presumably it is obvious. The gun mounting area is moulded in a similar way on at least six, and probably all seven of the kits, as is apparent from these linked images of the various kit sprues; although I could not find sprue images for A-Model’s Ka-52:

• Dragon Ka-50

• Hobby Boss/Ark Model Ka-50

• Italeri/Revell/Tamiya Ka-50

• Zvezda Ka-50

• Italeri/Revell/Tamiya Ka-52

• Zvezda Ka-52

After having sorted the cannon mount surgery the challenge becomes one of assembling all the various parts correctly.

This is a welcome set to compliment presumably any of the Ka-50 and Ka-52 kits available.

The quality of components and levels of detail provided are very good, although some of the tiny parts will require considerable care during assembly; but such is the price of achieving high levels of detail in this scale.

The set is let down by inadequate instructions, largely due to faint printing of the coloured parts numbers and arrows indicating parts placement. If this were improved I would consider the instructions adequate. Matters are helped to some extent by images on North Star’s website, both CAD and photos; but I was still left guessing what several PE parts were for.

I think the company should make more use of their website to post clearer, larger, and more detailed instructions. It would also be helpful to know if the set is optimised for any one brand of kit, or intended for use with all.  
Despite my qualms about the efficacy of the instructions, I am still happy to recommend this MPPU-80 set because of its good quality and improvement over kit parts. The MPPU-80 is a prominent feature of the Ka-50 and Ka-52, and so it is well worth enhancing this feature on your models; just expect to do make some extra effort figuring out where all the bits go.

Thanks to North Star Models for the review samples.

Review Text Copyright © 2016 by Mark Davies
Page Created 22 June, 2016
Last updated 8 July, 2016

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