1/48 Italeri CV-22B

by Gavin Rees

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Tilt Rotor aircraft have been tested for may years but only recently has the materials and technology been avaiable to make them reliable and safe to put into production.  It took many years of development by Bell Aircraft to finally get the V-22 flying.  The USMC was a perfect customer for such an aircraft, one that can carry large cargo's, take off vertically and transition to forward flight by rotating the engines from a vertical orientation to a horizontal orientation allowing the aircraft to perform like a turbo-prop aircaft.  This versitility allows the assault carriers to stand farther off shore and airlift the troops ashore.

The Italeri kit is a basic kit with minimal interior in the main cargo area but with decent cockpit detail.  The strange thing is that all the clear parts are of a dark tinted plastic which makes seeing in to the cockpit difficult.  Assembly is pretty straight forward with not a lot of gaps to fill.  It would have been nice to have the crew door openable but without some major cutting you are stuck with it being closed.  This kit just begs for an after-market interior (HINT- HINT!!!).  Options for the US Airforce would also be nice, although now that the USAF has gone to a metallic looking paint it would be quite a challenge to build.  But since I seem to be collecting USMC aircraft I kept it to the kit supplied Marine Corps version from the kit.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

Painted with Modelmaster paints and weathered with pastel chalks this has made a nice addition to my 1/48 USMC aircraft which started with the Acadamy CH-46E and now is made up of the UH-1N, CV-22B, CH-46E, and the CH-53E.  I am looking forward to redoing my UH-1N with the detail set from Cobra Company, and adding the Wiskey Cobra and doing up the two Harriers.  I think I am going to need a bigger shelf.  :)

This won Silver at the 2007 RMMC model contest in Calgary, while the CH-46 brought home a bronze.

Gavin 

Photos and text © by Gavin Rees