Hobby Boss 1/72 Hughes AH-64A Apache

HOBBY BOSS 1:72 HUGHES AH-64A APACHE

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: May 2009

Kit Details:

Hobby Boss #87218 - 1/72 AH-64A Apache

Aircraft History:

After cancelling the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne, the US Army badly needed a new attack helicopter offering a high level of survivability during all-weather day/night operations against Soviet armour on the high-intensity battlefield. Late in 1972, competition began between Bell and Hughes for an Advanced Attack helicopter and in December 1976 the Hughes (then McDonnell Douglas Helicopters, now Boeing/Lockheed) type was declared winner.

The AH-64 was put into production as a very complex machine, having to survive against ground fire through the use of sturdy structure, including an armoured "bathtub", and producing firepower unrivalled at the time with up to 16 hellfire missiles and a 30-mm cannon under the nose. The Apache also introduced the Martin Marietta Target Acquisition and Designation System and a Pilot's night vision system. Around 700 AH-64A's were produced before being upgraded and updated and ultimately replaced by later models, with the type serving US Army and Israel.

The Kit:

The reasonably large box houses two light grey sprues containing around 88 nicely molded parts, although a few of the parts are doubled up (presumably as spares or different options?), with good surface detail and engraved panel lines. A single canopy part is contained on a separate clear sprue and everything in the kit is bagged independently, even the clear sprue had a foam protector around it. Unlike other Hobby Boss kit this does not have a vacform base holding the parts, they are all in the box like traditional plastic model kits. There were two things that struck me when I opened the box, firstly the fuselage halves are almost complete from nose to tail and the majority of the parts in this kit are very small!

Instructions:

These come in the form of a double sided A3 sized sheet, folded to make an A4 booklet. A single double sided A4 page is provided separately for the colour schemes the kit caters for. On one side of the main instructions you have a sprue map and some overarching detail about the kit, and symbol explanation in two languages. The otherside has the construction steps which are simply just a whole lot of different drawings to follow, none of which are numbered. Overall not that hard to follow but makes the instructions a bit too busy and even for me created a little bit of confusion a couple of times. Some painting information is given from the Gunze Sangyo and Mr Color range.

Construction:

I was a little bit daunted by the construction because this kit had quite a lot of parts considering it was a helicopter that had been kitted by other manufacturers in this scale with a third less parts and just the whole frantic look about the instructions. If you were a novice to this hobby and had built some hobby boss kits because you were under the impression they were easy kits, the look about this one could scare you off forever!

The cockpit in this kit is quite good in this scale for mainstream with the dual cockpit presented in a tub with a reasonable amount of structural detail within. Two large instrument panels are provided for each cockpit that have the dashboard shroud and joysticks and cyclic pitch levers are provided. Into these are inserted large reasonably good looking armour plated crew seats. Not surprisingly everything fits very well. I painted the cockpit in a medium sea grey with red head rests and black seat padding as instructed. This cockpit sub assembly was set aside.

The distinctive sensor ball seen on the nose of the chopper was assembled next and comes in seven parts which makes for a fiddly but still straightforward assembly. I am not sure whether it is supposed to be attached in a way to enable the ball to be moveable, but I couldn't achieve this on mine. You could prepaint these parts but I preferred to do it all at the end, since it is all one colour... olive (the red and blue [or green] sensor lens were painted later also).

Then comes the stores with the stub wings, allowing for rockets and hellfires to be attached underneath. Rocket tube rails are attached to the stub wing tips and everything fits quite well. See my note in accuracy section below, but the kit appears to wrongly depict hellfires on the outer pylons and the wing tip rails probably shouldn't be there. In spite of this I followed the kit's instructions. The most fiddly / difficult assembly was the hellfires onto their rails. You get four hellfire missiles which are attached in pairs on an individual rail and these rails are then affixed together. I didn't achieve a great fit here, so be prepared for test fitting and lining up the alignment pins appropriately. Also if you are painting the rails aluminium and the missiles Olive as I did (I painted the missiles in a lighter Humrbol 155 olive drab to differentiate from the helicopter's paint scheme) then this needs to be done prior to the sub assembly - along with the decalling of stencils.

After the stores and before placing the fuselage halves together there are still things to do, namely the tail rotor sub assembly and the undernose gun. Again these parts are best prepainted before they are affixed together and overall they go together very nicely. There are also various hand rails and upper fuselage fences to install on the outer fuselage which I found best to do before affixing the halves together, and they fit nicely too. The only things to be aware of is obviously getting the right numbered part for where it should go on the model (I test fitted a wrong number on one occasion and it didn't fit!) and to be very careful of removing these small parts from the sprue. Cutters are strongly recommended.

I must admit at this stage I was getting a little bit frustrated with the project, as it was taking quite some time and I hadn't yet put the fuselage halves together (something you associate with doing early in a project!). But finally the chopper was about to take shape. The halves go together very well but pay attention to the instructions as you need to remember to affix the cockpit, tail rotor assembly, undernose gun and main rotor shaft (the last three being trapped rather than glued!) before putting the halves together. There was also a real need for clamps, masking tape, rubber bands etc to keep the halves from prying apart while it dried.

While the fuselage dried, I turned my attention to the engines, again it all fitted together very nicely with only the usual care taken to make sure you glue the rightly numbered parts together and that the left and right engine subassemblies are glued to the correct side of the fuselage. At the same time the stub wings (including stores) were added along with the rear tail wheel, rotor boom upper panel, rear stabilisers and nose sensors. Everything fits very nicely with only minor filler needed. The only area I thought needed a little bit of attention to blend it in was the nose sensors.

Then comes the undercarriage which is made up of two piece wheel and legs - just remember the wheels face outwards. The main rotor assembly needed a little bit of care taken to ensure the blades point the right direction (ie: clockwise) as it is easy to get it wrong, or upside down. Then the canopy fits on nicely over which goes a separate hood.

Colour Schemes:

Any colour so long as it is Olive! The kit suggests painting this chopper in Humbrol 155 which is a general lightish Olive Drab. My photos and references indicate it is the darker Olive Drab, so I went with Humbrol 66. The kit provides markings for an Israeli Air Force No.941 and a US Army AH-64A "Devil's Dance" with low-viz shark mouth, No. 88-0202 with no other details for either version supplied.

Decals:

The small decal sheet is well printed and even the "no step" stencils for the hellfires and rocket pods are easy to read. A small amount of stencilling is provided but nowhere near enough to be even really that acceptable for this kit - with many warning triangles and rescue arrows not provided. In terms of application, they are probably a touch on the thick side if you have to be critical of anything but they went on superbly and bedded down nicely with Gunze Sangyo setting solution.

Accuracy:

At first glance the Hobby Boss kit looks pretty damn good but once you have a bit of a look at things you realise there are some inaccuracies that may disappoint those looking for a definitive kit. The shape of the nose sensor balls, its housing, undernose machine gun bracket, undercarriage, upper tail boom and engine exhausts are all wrong. Very good attempts for a kit, but clearly inaccurate when you start comparing to references. Several small antennae are missing, most notably on the engines and forward fuselage just in front of the cockpit as are a variety of decals noted above. Every single AH-64A photo I managed to look at both on the Net and in my collection has the hellfires on the inner pylons and rockets on the outer, whereas the kit has it the other way around (who knows, the chopper may have been fitted out like the kit portrays but I could not find such a photo*) and the wing tip tube railings are not present in any AH-64A photo or feature I have been able to locate, so may be best left off. Likewise there is a large red navigation light housing behind the main rotor shaft on the roof of the fuselage which is also missing from all AH-64A photos I have, so presume this was added to a later model. Otherwise looks quite good.

* note I mean specifically the AH-64A version as the AH-64C and AH-64D choppers have the hellfires and rockets the other way around.

Overall Recommendation:

This is a pretty straight forward and a very nicely fitting kit that is really only let down by some errors in the accuracy department. In spite of the ease of fit, it was a project which certainly took quite some time to finish and had a variety of smaller fiddly parts which would probably make it beyond the scope of the novice modellers. The kit looks very impressive when finished, albeit missing a few components and looking more like an AH-64C/D (non longbow) than an AH-64A. Recommended for those who aren't too hung up on my nitpicks above.

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