Westland WS-51 Dragonfly HR.3

Quick summary of the project dedicated to building a 1:72 scale model of the Westland-Sikorsky WS-51 Dragonfly, early camo.

The model kit is a short-run made by AMP (Mikromir). In general, making this model took 1 month of work. It is quite fresh but made from low-quality styrene: the surface details, geometry, and fit are fine but part edges are rough and require a lot of filing and sanding. It is very challenging and require patience, but the engineering is fine:

1. There are some PE but not so much.
2. With a little bit of drilling and sanding, all small parts can fit without glue.
3. The rotor hub is the most complex you can get in 1:72, but I did it in one go without much pain.

All in all, building the model is not so painful as with other short-run vendors.

The model is quite correct except some obvious deviations, like too wide blades, incorrect wheel hubs, questionable geometry of the hoist frame. Perhaps designer didn't have reliable measurements and used just common sense.

All canopy glazing is made from transparent plastic which is good - the frames look quite thin and clean which is required for such a helicopter. All required masks for exterior are included in the kit; they are made from film but stick perfectly; interior masks need some effort because they are strictly required. Another complexity here is that the transparent parts do not perfectly fit in the front area but fortunately it is not quite visible.

Interior is fine for 1:72 scale and can be perfectly exposed when helicopter doors are open. I found out that I incorrectly painted some panels - all but the floor must be Interior Green because I chose the earliest painting scheme which follows WWII standards. For exterior, I probably made mistakes with rotor blades and wheels, but from the historical photos, it is not so easy to understand how they were painted.

The decals have perfect quality but the apparently miss security signs (must be red) and technical stensils.There is only one early variant available, and it's markings are not typical for the Royal Navy - I guess it was painted differently for the show. But I admit, it looks very nice and worth making.