1/35 Italeri/MRC AH-1W 

by Kaan Gök

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  Turkey National Independance and Children Day 2006 

 

This is my Italeri AH-1W finished as Turkish Ground Forces version. I used some parts from the Cobra Company NTS upgrade set (Turkish Cobras do not have the full upgrade parts), some from Verlinden's set and Eduard's Armament and interior sets. The TOW launchers of the Eduard set was beautiful, but assembling them requires a lot of patience, so I ended up using only one of them. I used an empty Hellfire launcher on the other side.

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I hollowed out the Chaff/flare launchers and put a UPS wrap into there. (Yes that was on the real helicopter, too :) )

Decals are drawn using Paint Shop Pro, and ALPS printed. Having lots of references (thanks Ufuk) helped replicating all of the stencils on the helicopter.

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The model has been painted using Gunze Sangyo lacquers and weathering was kept to a minimum because of the appearance of the real helicopter on the IDEF 2003 airshow. 

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The model was changed from 3 tone Marines camo to grey Marines version (NTS) and to the Turkish Ground Forces version in a construction period of two years. I'm glad that it is finally finished. 

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Kaan

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Photos and text © by Kaan Gök