Paint it black

Blaim it in on TV show ‘Tour of duty’ - whenever I see a Huey, I hear ‘Paint it black’.

Anyway, this post isn’t about flashbacks from my teens, but a flashback from about six or seven years ago, when Battlefront decided for some unexplainable reason to transplant their ‘Flames of War’ ruleset into Vietnam conflict. I guess things didn’t work out too well with that idea, but since Battlefront never does anything half-hearted, we’ve got a shedload of minis out of that misadventure… Perhaps the most valuable addition, if one’s to draw the conclusions of the fact how hard they’re to find these days, are helicopters that are symptomatic with Vietnam conflict – Bell UH-1 Iroquois, better known as ‘Huey’.

Since I’ve started to think about getting into Vietnam conflict, I’ve managed to acquire couple of those models. But, as so often, once acquired, they landed in a box and have been resting there ever since. That is until today, when I’ve dug them out of the stash and cracked open one of the boxes.

What I found in it was a bit of a surprise – a strange mix of resin, metal and plastic components which took aback even a moderately experienced model builder like myself. Body of the helicopter consists of three resin components, which aren’t exactly best moulds I’ve seen. They do seem however to fit together resonably well. Main rotor assembly seems fiddly and metal parts are covered in flash. I do however like the fact that both the rotor and the stand are attached to the fuselage with rare earth magnets, making them removable for storage and transport purposes. Somebody at Battlefront did use their nuggets!

So… initial impression is overall cautiously positive – with a little TLC, this could turn out to be a pretty decent ‘Huey’. Will report again, once I get started with the construction.