1/32 Italaerei Testor OH-58A Kiowa

Gallery Article by Patrick Nabinger on May 25 2016

 

      

Hello All,

I thought I would send in some pics of my old OH-58A Kiowa. It's a very old kit from Italaerei (Yes at this time Italeri was called Italaerei). Originally from IMC, it was re-issued by Hawk,Testor, Italaerei, then re-reissued by Revell

I built it in 1983, I was a young modeler at this time. I had no PC, no access to the web and just 3 photos of a Kiowa

Of course, not enough reference material to do a good job. It's why you can see a few inaccuracies:

  • I didn't modify the rotor diameter nor the tail boom length, (the original kit is a civilian Bell 206 JET RANGER)

  • I had no idea on how the inside of the military aircraft looked, so I installed the civilian seats with a scratch build instrument panel.

  • The inside color match perfectly with the reference photo ... but the color of the photo was wrong

 

Click on images below to see larger images

The shape of the windshield was completely wrong. I made a new windshield vacuformed on a plaster form. The first years the windshield was clear as crystal. But after a few years the plastic became yellowish and it becomes increasingly brownish and opaque. It is really time to rebuild my Kiowa!

As you can see, far away of a perfect model. By publishing this article my only goal is to tempt a talented modeler to embark on the adventure and to show us how to make a « real 1/32 OH58A » by converting this old kit.

Patrick Nabinger

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Photos and text © by Patrick Nabinger