Cobra Company 1/48 Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk By Michael Benolkin

Background

The US Navy needed a replacement helicopter for its aging fleet of Kaman SH-2 Seasprites and Sikorsky SH-3 Sea Kings. They decided on a navalized version of the UH-60A Blackhawk that was entering service with the US Army. The result became the SH-60B Seahawk LAMPS Mk.III (Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System). The SH-60B provides Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), Search and Rescue (SAR) and other mission support to its mother ship and to the battlegroup.

One of the most noticeable differences between an Army and a Navy H-60 (aside from the obvious paint job) is the relocated tail wheel. The UH-60 has the tail wheel located at the end of the tail cone as part of the landing gear as well as provide protection when tail hits the ground during landing. The SH-60 must operate from smaller surfaces (like the flight deck on the aft end of a Frigate), so the tail wheel was moved up to the base of the tail cone.

While the SH-60B entered service the mid-1980s, it will soldier on for the foreseeable future. Its success at sea and ashore has led to the Navy tp procure and operate additional versions of the Seahawk, and the US Coast Guard adopting the airframe as well, dubbing it Jayhawk.

The Kit

While we've had several kits of the Army Blackhawk available in 1/48 and 1/35 scale, the best you could do for a Seahawk was 1/72 scale - that is until Cobra Company tackled the problem. They released their SH-60B and SH-60F versions a year or so ago and finally provided a beautifully detailed rendition of the Seahawk.

The Seahawk kit is comprised of a load of resin parts including a complete fuselage, white metal parts, photo-etched details, vacuformed transparencies, decals, and one complete plastic H-60 kit.

On opening the box, the first thing you'll notice is the complete Academy 1/48 Blackhawk kit inside. While this seems odd at first, you'll notice in the instructions that the kit provides some essential parts, such as the rotor blades. This is one of those rare kits where you get to put the majority of the plastic kit into the spares box in order to build the project.

The next thing that catches the eye is the resin fuselage, cast in two halves. Individually wrapped in bubble wrap, the fuselage halves are beautifully molded with nicely scribed detail and no visible bubbles in the resin. I taped the fuselage halves together to see how they fit without any preparation. You can see in the photos how nicely they fit together. The kit also includes a large sheet of wet/dry sandpaper that needs to be affixed to a flat surface. You'll use the sandpaper to sand the fuselage halves smooth and to adjust the width of the fuselage. The Seahawk kit makes use of the Academy kit's windscreen and engine deck to use as gauges to measure the width and fit of the resin fuselage halves.

With the fuselage prepared, you'll need to remove the remaining resin interior and exterior detail parts from their mold carriers and assemble according to the instructions. If you've ever used a Cobra Company detail set in the past, you'll know just how detailed their resin castings are and how easy they are to work with. Not counting the two resin fuselage halves, there are two bags of resin parts in the kit that provide cockpit details, main cabin details, and all of the exterior radomes, antennas, etc.

The white metal parts provide the naval rotor head for this kit as well as the crew seat frames, flight controls, tailwheel strut, etc. A nice fret of photo-etched parts round out the details to this kit.

Decals

The decals included in this kit are beautifully printed and in register. Four subjects are covered with this sheet including:

• SH-60B, TA02, HSL-51 'Warlords', NAS Atsugi Japan (Special Markings)

• SH-60B, TT22, HSL-43 'Battle Cats', USS Mobile Bay (CG-53), Desert Storm

• SH-60B, HR500, HSL-48 'Vipers', NAS Pensacola FL (CAG Markings)

• SH-60B, HR503, HSL-48 'Vipers', NAS Pensacola FL

The special markings on the Atsugi-based Seahawk are very attractive and will likely be my choice of projects.

Conclusion

This is the first kit that Cobra Company has released in this scale and all I can say is 'more, please!' Cobra Company has also released the SH-60F 'Ocean Hawk' as well and had indicated that two further versions of the Seahawk are in the works if the interest is there.

While the $140.00 USD price might take your breath away at first, as you can see in these photos that you're definitely getting your moneys worth. Even if we see a plastic version of the Seahawk released in the future, I seriously doubt that it will feature anywhere near the detail that is inside this kit.

One additional note, the SH-60B and SH-60F kits are no longer in regular production, so if you're interested in obtaining one of these versions, you'll need to get out to Cobra Company's website (https://www.cobracompany.com) soon. While you're there, you can check out their cool conversions for many of your other projects!

This kit gets two thumbs up!