S-100 Camcopter

Brengun, 1/32 & 1/48 scales

Reviewed by David Couche

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

The Schiebel Camcopter S-100 is an Austrian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using a rotorcraft design.

Produced by the Austrian company Schiebel, it was developed from 2003 to 2005. With a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 200 kilograms (440 lb), its endurance is 6 hours (extendable to over 10 hours with optional external AVGAS fuel tanks fitted). It has a maximum speed of 220 kilometres per hour (140 mph) and a ceiling of 5,500 metres (18,000 ft). It is powered by a 55 horsepower (41 kW) Diamond engine and can carry various payloads, such as electro-optics and infrared sensors.

On 12 March 2012 Schiebel announced that it successfully tested a company-developed heavy-fuel engine interchangeable with the standard Diamond engine. This heavy-fuel engine allows for the use of JP-5, Jet A-1 or JP-8 jet fuels. These fuels, which are standard on marine vessels, are safer to store and handle than gasoline.

A number of countries operate the Schiebel Camcopter S-100 including, Canada, Australia, UAE, India, France, Italy, China, Tunisia and Belgium.

Brengun has continued with the resin kits of various helicopter drones they started several years ago. These new releases are for the Schiebel Camcopter S-100 in several scales, being 1/32, 1/48 and 1/72. I have the 1/32 and 1/48 boxings which, apart from size are completely identical, therefore only one review is needed for both.

Both kits come in Brengun’s typically sturdy boxes that their resin kits usually come in. They are well protected from damage in them. Having built the Fire Scout last year, what I notice about these kits is that they are far simpler. If any modellers out there are thinking of attempting their first all resin model, then these kits would be most appropriate for you. Each kit has 12 grey resin cast parts. Casting is refined with excellent detail and no signs of flaws in the resin. Panel lines are recessed and, note in the comparison photo, the lines are in relative scale on each. Well done Brengun to give us such excellent detail.

Complex areas such as around the exhaust outlet has crisp detail. This is also noted around the vents that are prominent on the body. And now for what I would see as the hardest part of this kit. This is the 8 part photo-etched intake grill for the upper nose section. This will take careful assembly and, I believe you would be better off painting this with the body colour before you put it into the nose. This will stop any overspray roughness that an enclosed section produces.

Now for a detailed look at the kit. The first thing you notice is that you have a large piece of resin that is the major body part. All detail has been moulded into it with only 4 parts required to be glued to it with these being the tail section, the landing skids and the camera unit. Two small pitot tubes will need to be added after painting. It really doesn’t get much simpler than this.

The tail is another large piece of resin with only 2 main parts to be added to it and a few etch aerials after painting due to the likelihood of them being knocked off during the painting process.

The rotor has resin head sections to which 2 etched blades are slotted into it. This is a positive manner of attachment, better than many other choppers I have built with a butt join for the blades.

The body and the tail are assembled by the body having a small plug section that goes into a matching hole on the tail. This positive location and ensures that the body and tail are not assembled twisted.

This really should only take a couple of nights to assemble and you’ll be ready for painting.

The instruction are a double sided A4 sheet. Colour call outs are for generic colours, but for those doing the French, Italian or MOAS versions, you may need to seek reference photos and match to those Navies or aircraft colours.

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Thumbnail panels:

The decals themselves appear to be in good register and well printed.

The four schemes are as follows:

• S-100 Royal Australian Navy – all semi-gloss black (see photo above)

• S-100 French Navy – all light grey

• S-100 Italian Navy – all light grey

• S-100 Canadian Coast Guard – gloss red/white (see photo above)

• S-100 MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) – Semigloss blue/white

These are both very neat kits. In this time of isolation creating increased modelling time for many, including me, and my current build getting to the painting stage, this kit has excited me with the resin quality and the degree of “simplicity”, as well as having and Australian version and they will make a nice additions to my collection.

I’m going to do a double build with the 1/32 kit in the Canadian scheme and the 1/48 in the RAN scheme.

Watch this space as it’s now on the bench and I’ll give a build review(s) soon.

Thanks to Brengun for the review sample.

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2020 by David Couche
Page Created 1 April, 2020
Last updated 1 April, 2020

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