This kit from
AMtech is of the 1/72 EC-135N/E ARIA/ALOTS "Snoopy".
This kit is a "next step" in the AMT/ERTL KC-135 family of kits.
It includes sprues of light
gray styrene, one of clear styrene parts and decals to make one of four different
EC-135's.
The EC-135 housed the largest
airborne parabolic dish antenna (7 feet or over 2 meters in diameter). The
initial purpose of these aircraft was to track returning Apollo spacecraft and
later the EC-135's were used for tracking a variety of airborne items.
Their contribution made possible the development of systems like Apollo, Space
Shuttle, Magellan, Tomahawk, Cruise Missile, Trident, Pershing and Peacekeeper
programs.
The first thing
I always consider when buying a kit is quality of the moulding. This
kit has delicate recessed panel lines. |
This kit has a
slightly unique
way of installing the wings. The wings don't have the standard tabs
that you'd stick into the fuselage. Instead this kit has a bottom
section for the center of the wings. The top of each the wing is
full size.....but the bottom of the wing is just the outer 2/3's of the
wing. This design permits an incredibly thin wing due to the added
support of the center wing lower section....but you can get wing droop
over time. A reinforcement technique is covered in the instructions |
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that
will solve this problem. The added fix includes gluing a bit of
sheet styrene to reinforce the inside of the wing. I see no
drawbacks to this design if you include the sheet styrene to reinforce the
wing. |
The interior
is another area that always fascinates me. This kit has a very
detailed way of doing the cockpit overhead console. It is molded to
the cockpit windscreen and then a grey styrene part goes on the outside of
the overhead console area. You can now detail this console on the
inside and the clear styrene means you can detail the gauges from the
backside/topside of the overhead console giving you some very good paint
and detailing options that will preserve the "glass" of the
analog gauges in this overhead console. This is certainly creative
in design for this kit.
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The
cockpit parts are either very good or downright stunning. The seats
I would call very good. They are a bit on the plain side but quite
good considering some I've seen in 1/72. |
Some seatbelts
would help here. The instrument panel is a delicate work of
art....beautiful detail abounds. Drybrushing would bring this
instrument panel to life. Or you could use the second instrument
panel that is included and has no raised detail and install the instrument
panel decal included in the kit. |
Click on
images below to see larger images |
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Other interior
detail is very well done and full of delicate detail. |
Click on
images below to see larger images |
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The wheels and
landing gear are also full of very crisp detail. The inside of the
main gear well has added detail to permit the modeller to detail this area
as well with very little effort. Some detail painting and a wash
should do the trick very nicely here. |
Click on
images below to see larger images |
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Check out the
detail on these main gear doors. Beautiful stuff.
There is also 4 light grey
resin pieces included in the kit. These are for the EC-135N/E TACSAT,
Fuel Dump and ALOTS pod and are flawlessly molded. Complete
installation instructions for these resin parts are included in the kit. |
Click on
images below to see larger images |
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Main
Gear doors |
Resin
Pieces |
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There is also the option to
use either the J-57 Turbojet or the TF-33 Turbofan engines.
The decals
included in the kit are thin and will conform well. They are also
clearly printed and in register. The decal
options are for 4 different aircraft. You have a choice between 2
aircraft painted aluminum paint and white or two aircraft painted light
grey and white. These four paint schemes are different but very
similar from a distance. |
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They include aircraft from
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4556th Test group, AF Eastern
Test Range Patrick AFB Florida 1970
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4950thTest Wing, Aeronautical
Systems Division Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 1971
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4950thTest Wing, Aeronautical
Systems Division Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 1977
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4950thTest Wing, Aeronautical
Systems Division Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 1977
Decal option #4
includes nose art of an EC-135 with Talons extended in full attack
mode. Remember this is 1/72 and this decal is the size of my
thumbnail and as you can see by the blown up scan to the right....this
decal sheet is of a very high quality.
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The main instruction
booklet includes 8 pages of instructions. Line drawings are clearly laid
out and include painting instructions. Also included is a two page
addendum with pictures of
instructions explaining how to strengthen the wings. As well as a 4 page
addendum with pictures of
instructions explaining how to install the resin parts. Also included is a
12 page booklet telling the history, specs and other info about this aircraft
and includes the decal instructions for the 4 aircraft included on the decal
sheet.
AMtech
has impressed me with their actions of being a model company that stands behind
their very fine line of models and they put a very high priority on customer
service. They are also very much focused on the serious modeller and they
seem to go out of their way to provide extra info in their instruction sheets to
make the model building process easier and more pleasant.
This is a very nice
kit and will build up to a very impressive model of the 1/72 EC-135N/E.
I'd like to thank
AMtech
for the review sample.
Steve Bamford
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