Mil Mi-24V Hind-E

The kit comes with 3 sprues moulded in a light grey and a sprue containing the clear parts. Although the canopy has a lovely great mould seam straight down the middle! All sealed separately. A set of decals with markings for an Iraqi AF and a Russian AF machine are provided with a full colour painting and decal placement instructions. Although the Russian aircraft is incorrect, as it the shark ‘white 03’ should be on a Mi 24P, which has the side mounted twin 30mm Gsh.

Construction is quite straight forward, starting with the cockpit, which comes fully detailed with side panels to box the whole thing in. The cabin again is just about complete and includes the ceiling which doubles as a support for the engine exhausts and seats and supporting structure. There is also the option of displaying the cabin doors open.

What is quite intriguing about the way in which HobbyBoss has designed this kit is that they have elected to have wheel bays as separate sub assemblies. This leads to a more detailed look to the undercarriage. These are inserted before the fuselage is joined.

Now where we come to the joining of the fuselage halves we come across one of the quirks of the kit, the ariels are moulded on, not separate as you would expect, which leads to a very convoluted join which is a bit of a SOB to get right. The engine cover is represented as a single piece which was the only place where I couldn’t get a decent fit and filler had to be used. The canopy with it’s seam was sorted with copious amounts of water a very worn piece of 1200 grit wet’n’dry, finished off with a silver polishing cloth. Result! Clear parts are my Achilles heel.

The armament supplied in the kit is huge and includes just about every type of weapon or fuel tank carried by this helicopter. 2 different types of rocket pods, Sager missiles or tube launched for the endplates, gun pods, fuel tanks and bombs. Impressive!

Construction of the rotor head and blades was again straightforward, with a well detailed rotor head. The blades come flat, so these were bent to create the droop as when the aircraft is on the ground. I found that the raised detail on the blades was a little too heavy; I’ll rub them down a bit next time.

When assembled and masked I decided as is my want to deviate from the kit decals and used the most excellent Linden Hill decals, choosing to represent a Hind as used by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan’s I sprayed a light blue first, followed by Mr Hobby H79 sandy yellow and a grey green mixed using Mr Hobby H52 and H57. I then coated the model with Johnsons Klear as barrier I preceded to hilight the panel lines with Winsor and Newton Paynes grey oil paint. With the decals on the entire Hind was matt vanished and the armament and wheels added. A word about Hind wheels… These will need to be flattened quite considerably as they seem to be used with very low pressures and appear almost flat.

Conclusion:

This is a great kit and represents good value for money. It went together with very little effort. Don’t be put off by the canopy seam as this is easily solved. With all the extras like all the armament options and the ability have the cabin doors open there are lots of possibilities. The only niggle I have is, why when they have included lots of extras, did they not include the IR suppressors. Perhaps this will be remedied with a future issue. In the meantime I do have so spare for the Vitaler kit.

I shall be buying some more of this kit as the Linden Hill decal sheets in my collection are calling to me “Cote D’Ivorie”. Hum Nice.