History

The Bell 212 is a twin-engined variant of the Bell 205 (the famous Huey) first developed for the Canadian Army as the CUH-1N in 1968. The military Twin Huey has been operated by the armed forces of 50 different countries, and the civilian version has been operated by private companies and police forces in 25 countries (with some overlap of the military list).

First Impressions

There are 50 parts on the larger fret, and 58 on the smaller, pre coloured self-adhesive fret. Not surprisingly, this makes a total of 108 parts, some very tiny indeed. (The smaller fret, by the way, is available separately as set No. SS402). The colouring is limited to the seat belts, instrument panels and anti-torque pedals, which are printed with easily read “Bell” “Huey” titles. Eduard says that this set is made for the Revell kit, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be used on the Italeri kit instead. Revell has often reboxed Italeri plastic, and it's quite probable that this is another.

Self Adhesive fret

This fret covers the cockpit. Replacement faces are provided for the instrument panel (made up in layers), centre console, and overhead console. These will require the moulded in detail to be removed before they are put into place. Seatbelts, mounting brackets, foot rests and anti torque pedals make up the bulk of the sheet, with a couple of small grilles for the outside.

second fret

The second and larger fret contains bench seats for the rear of the cabin, small details for the edges of the cockpit roof, and many other small details for the exterior. These include synchronising elevator end caps, engine intake grilles, windscreen wipers, cable cutters, stiffeners, sling hook and what appear to be formation “slime” lights that some aircraft were equipped with. There are also end caps for the rocket launcher tubes. Some of these details require the raised detail on the model to be removed before they may be installed.

conclusion

This detail set is very complete, and with care will make your Bell 212 kit stand out from the crowd. Some of the details are incredibly small, and great care must be taken when attaching them to the model if they are not to be lost to the carpet monster. While not specifically made for it, many of the parts could be adapted to the Italeri 412 kit as well. Some of the parts, especially the anti-torque pedals, look a little flat, a limitation of the material. Other parts make good use of layering and folding to render quite convincing 3 dimensional representations. The pedals look a little large compared to the kit parts. It'll be up to the modeller to decide whether they're too big.

This kit was kindly provided for review by Eduard.
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