Anyone built the new ICM AH-1G yet?

[Hawkwrench]

On 9/6/2021 at 2:52 PM, seiran01 said:

I have paint on mine despite not completing the cockpit yet. Fit is absolutely superb, as is the surface detail on the fuselage. Cockpit detail is lacking, but what detail is there is sharply rendered. Same goes for the transmission and rotor.

I've been installing the new Quinta cockpit set in mine, and it makes a significant improvement.

 

Pictures, pictures!!!

 

Tim

[Martinnfb]

x2.

[BloorwestSiR]

Mine arrived yesterday. It does indeed look impressive. The only but is the way they depicted the cannon barrels for the 20mm Vulcan. I'm going to get a Master barrel set for that and then it'll be good to go.

 

Carl

[Out2gtcha]

9 minutes ago, BloorwestSiR said:

Mine arrived yesterday. It does indeed look impressive. The only but is the way they depicted the cannon barrels for the 20mm Vulcan. I'm going to get a Master barrel set for that and then it'll be good to go.

 

I actually didnt think the mini-guns were too bad. Obviously not as good as a master barrel would be.............

 

Which one would work for the late production?  I think it may have one mini-gun and a nade launcher?  I noticed they dont have a specific mini gun for the AH-1, so would any work in 32nd?

[BloorwestSiR]

 

2 minutes ago, Out2gtcha said:

Which one would work for the late production?  I think it may have one mini-gun and a nade launcher?  I noticed they dont have a specific mini gun for the AH-1, so would any work in 32nd?

 

Brian, it's for the underwing Vulcan pod that comes with the late kit. I figure an M61 barrel set should work. 

 

http://www.master-model.pl/product/am-32-029.html

 

Haven't seen a nose gun either. I'm going to check to see how any of the 1/35 minigun barrels look but I suspect Master will come out with something soon enough. 

 

Carl

[John1]

30 minutes ago, BloorwestSiR said:

 

 

Brian, it's for the underwing Vulcan pod that comes with the late kit. I figure an M61 barrel set should work. 

 

http://www.master-model.pl/product/am-32-029.html

 

Haven't seen a nose gun either. I'm going to check to see how any of the 1/35 minigun barrels look but I suspect Master will come out with something soon enough. 

 

Carl

Looks pretty fidely to install.   Don’t forget / the barrels on the Cobra 20mm were shorter than the standard Vulcan cannon.   

[ScottS.]

2 hours ago, BloorwestSiR said:

 

 

Brian, it's for the underwing Vulcan pod that comes with the late kit. I figure an M61 barrel set should work. 

 

http://www.master-model.pl/product/am-32-029.html

 

Haven't seen a nose gun either. I'm going to check to see how any of the 1/35 minigun barrels look but I suspect Master will come out with something soon enough. 

 

Carl

 

I think early Cobra's had mini-guns which were 7.62mm.

[D Bellis]

1 hour ago, ScottS. said:

I think early Cobra's had mini-guns which were 7.62mm.

7.62mm miniguns were usually fitted in the nose turret.

 

XM35 20mm rotary cannon sometimes later fitted to the left stub-wing. This installation also involved a large ammo chute/feed box on both sides of the lower fuselage as well as armor plating on the left fuselage side to minimize muzzle-blast damage to the airframe. 

 

Both of those weapons could be carried at the same time.

 

HTH,

D

[Dave Williams]

Generally, early Cobras had a single 7.62  minigun turret, the tail rotor on the left side, and landing lights behind a clear nose tip.  Over time, changes were made, which included a turret with two gun positions, usually, but not always, fitted with one 7.62 minigun and a 40mm grenade launcher, the tail rotor moved to the right side, and a retractable landing light in the belly (with the clear nose tip painted over, or replaced by a metal part.  These changes happened over time, so it wasn’t uncommon to see a mixture of “early” and “late” features.  I believe that swapping the turret to the two gun version was one of the first changes that happened.  The XM-35 cannon system was simply a weapons system that was fitted or not, like any other weapon.  By the time it was fielded, I think most of the Cobra fleet was in the “late” configuration, so usually it was seen on “late” AH-1Gs.  I’ve heard various things about the other armament carried when the XM-35 was carried.  The XM-35 system was heavy, with the gun, ammo sponsons, and blast plating on the side of the cockpit, so they wouldn’t/couldn’t carry a full weapons load on the three other pylons plus full turret armament and ammo. 

[wunwinglow]

On 9/7/2021 at 9:59 AM, Confusionreigns178 said:

I've been wondering how noticeable the size difference between the 1/32nd and 1/35th versions will be? Would you only really notice if you have them alongside each other? Or really obvious?

 

Chris. 

Blindingly obvious..... 

[BloorwestSiR]

This is the kit version of the barrels for the XM-35 (thanks @D Bellis for what's it's called). 

 

 

 

The only M134 gun barrles that I know of are made by RB Models but are only in 1/35. Those are tiny and fiddly. Live Resin also do some in resin but again, 1/35.

 

Carl

[D Bellis]

Note the 7-shot rocket pod on the outboard station with the XM35 installed:

 

Here we can see ae 19-shot rocket pod inboard, 7-shot rocket pod outboard and two 7.62mm Miniguns in the nose with the ammo storage box bulge indicating the XM35 is installed (but is out of sight on the other side): 

 

And an unobstructed shot of just the weapon itself:

 

D

[BloorwestSiR]

21 minutes ago, D Bellis said:

Note the 7-shot rocket pod on the outboard station with the XM35 installed:

 

Here we can see ae 19-shot rocket pod inboard, 7-shot rocket pod outboard and two 7.62mm Miniguns in the nose with the ammo storage box bulge indicating the XM35 is installed (but is out of sight on the other side): 

 

And an unobstructed shot of just the weapon itself:

 

D

 

There's two M134 minigun barrels in the kit so that one is definitely do-able if you can get decals for it. 

[D Bellis]

1 hour ago, BloorwestSiR said:

There's two M134 minigun barrels in the kit so that one is definitely do-able if you can get decals for it. 

The old 1/32 Fireball Modelwerks Decals FMD-01 32 have markings for Zahn's "Cindy Ann". Difficult, but not impossible to find. 

 

And yes, I do have a set of those decals waiting for me to find a good deal on the ICM 'late' kit.

 

D

[Marcleon]

Back to the title of the thread, I have started this kit but I'm not sure I will get enough time to finish it soon, so have not started a WIP... but here are a few progress shots... so something happened... in orange... and I am really impressed with this kit, the quality, detail and thought that went into it's creation... And to add a few thoughts of my own...

 

https://i.ibb.co/KLBCBvh/IMG-2919.jpg

 

I much prefer to assemble the fuselage halves first, so here are tail, nose and central pieces both sides all together, I can line up the curves on the outside much more accurately this way, and if there is a center line seam, well, we've all spent years dealing with those! I also added the doors to the transmission and gearbox compartment here, as I can line it all up... of course, if you are doing open doors, leave off... The internal detail is accurate, as far as I can see, but not complete... you will need to do some work...

 

https://i.ibb.co/hDjBLcL/IMG-2921.jpg

 

Here are the assembled blades, tailplanes and tail rotor. The blade halves go together well, just please remove the ejection pin markings and burrs from the mating surfaces first, a minor job, but then they go together so well and have a fine trailing and leading edge... I started on the yellow tips and the yellow is an undercoat for the orange on the tailplanes.. no kit is started unless you throw some paint on...

 

https://i.ibb.co/d2K52yH/IMG-2923.jpg

 

Yes, the cockpit is a little sparse, but accurate and enough for a simple build. The AM guys are already going mad here... some seatbelts would help!

 

https://i.ibb.co/Sn9bzy4/IMG-2924.jpg

 

The skids look good, if you're not using the ground handling wheels drill out the attachment points ... oops, I see a seam I missed....

 

https://i.ibb.co/n7FmqHH/IMG-2925.jpg

 

 

The stub wings and armament look good, and fit well, started on the bang, bang stuff!

Well, just a great kit so far and I will blog it if I get some time...

HTH,

Marc