Description
Academy 12115 AH-60L DAP BLACK HAWK Helicopter Plastic Model Kit.
It builds into highly detailed 1/35 scale model.
It builds into highly detailed 1/35 scale model.
The AH-60L is an armed outgrowth of the MH-60L and provides more firepower over a greater operating range than the AH-6J.
The ‘DAP’ in its title stands for Direct Action Penetrator, which is evidently Army speak for their new bird’s ability to kick the door down.
Kit Included:
– Main cabin doors can be positioned opened or closed
– Port engine bay may be built open or closed
– Cable cutters, antennas, IR jammer, chaff/flare launchers and HIRSS exhaust shields
– M261 19-tube Rocket Launcher and AGM-114 Hellfire included
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Keith T –
Was just as described and on time.
Hal VT –
I’ve built this one three or four times and I was a crew chief on UH-60s during the timeframe roughly portrayed, so I have a pretty good sense of the kit and the aircraft it portrays.
The good:
It’s got basically all the sprue trees for UH-60L, the Air Force Pave Hawk, or the Night Stalkers’ MH-60, making it the most modular kit out there, I believe.
It costs about half what the KH kit costs.
If you dry fit, research well, and pay attention, it builds into a pretty good representation of the various H-60s.
You can build it with one engine door open. But the T700 or T701 GE engine in there isn’t all that convincing, and it would take a lot of scratch to make that look anything much like the actual number-two engine.
The bad:
Most people don’t have the background I have with the aircraft, so knowing what version you are building and what goes on it takes some digging. UH-60s and their various offshoot models underwent fairly continuous changes, and in the three units I crewed in, each had aircraft configured differently, and often different avionics and armament packages even within the unit, meaning different antennas and weapons sticking out from different places. If you want to show a specific helicopter, you will have to do your homework.
There are a couple of places where fit is an issue: the top of the inside of the cargo hook box in the belly, for example, has to be sanded down considerably for the cargo floor to sit flat and flush at the cargo doors.
There is of course some detail omission, like the main landing gear struts being visible in the cabin when it would have been fairly easy for Academy to provide panels to cover them.
Decals are very, very yellow. I see what they were trying to do here: the markings depicted in yellow were actually olive drab, which, against the off-black of the airframe, looked, okay, a little yellowish, maybe (my unit shared a hangar with one or two of these some 25 or so years ago, so I’ve seen those markings in person). If you want to more accurately model the Task Force aircraft, get the Werner’s Wings decal set, which also includes some really nice MH-6 markings; for a line aircraft, I’m sure there are other options with all the stenciling in black – I think the WW “Workhorse of the Army” set is no longer available, but might be an option at swap meets or the web.
For a pretty big and fairly impressive model, there are still some fiddly bits: the rotor head is a bit persnickety, and the WSPS attachments are a pain. Cabin seats are multiple pieces, and pay attention to the difference in forward- versus rear-facing seats (not to mention the outboard-facing crew seats). Be careful also fitting the windscreen and greenhouses piece to the aircraft, as that takes some work to get fully flush.
With the Kitty Hawk being now, I believe, out of production, and prices skyrocketing on that scarce kit, this is a practical large-scale UH/MH-60 for anyone who’s been around the workbench a few years. While a good Army or Air Force subject, it cannot be converted easily to a naval helo, as their tail wheel is placed much further up to facilitate deck landings and they have a whole bunch of hydraulic stuff on the rotor for folding.
But yeah, I’d build it again, and I probably will. There are a ton of builds documented online with more specifics and some inspired improvements, so give those a look, and happy building.