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Snake Bite! - AH-1W Super Cobra

The Engine

The Super Cobra has two 1690 shp General Electric T700-GE-401 engines. The kit gives the option to leave the left-side engine access doors open. The problem is that the main parts which form the engine in the kit (C23 and C24) are very approximate and lacking in details. So building it was the most laborious job in whole project: it needed many reference pictures.... and a lot of patience! I used every type of material I had: different thickness copper and tin wires, various diameter plastic and copper tubes, lead foil, plastic rods, different resin bolts and many other parts coming from my scrap-box (photo .14 and .15). Later, I detailed its compartment too (photo .16 and .17). Than I painted the engine using Testors Modelmaster metalizer colours: in my opinion they are ideal for airbrushing. Later I applied a diluted wash with oil paints (black and burnt umber). At last I airbrushed a thin coat of Tamiya acrylic colour XF19“Smoke” (photo .18 and .19).

The Fuselage

Externally, the model doesn’t need much superdetailing work, due to the good moulding of the kit which has fine engraved panel lines and embossed rivets. To join fuselage halves was quite simple, without much puttying. It was necessary to cut out the plastic grills and replace them with photoetched ones, after reducing plastic thickness. A little work was needed to detail the tail rotor gearbox (Evergreen plastic card and copper wire). The item on top is a Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna (photo .20 and .21). Under the wings I added electrical firing cables to the inboard pylon where I decided to place the seven-tube 2.75 inch LAU-68/A rocket pod (photo .22). Then I placed the photoetched parts from Eduard's exterior set on the fuselage and I added the mooring rings, scratch-built with metal wire and lead foil. Lastly, I replaced the engine exhausts (their plastic is too thick) with Eduard's photoetched parts.