1/48 Italeri RAH-66 Comanche

by Jojo B Cruz

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This is my 1/48 scale Italeri RAH-66 Comanche recon/attack chopper. The US Army cancelled the project in February 2004. At the time, Boeing-Sikorsky already had two flying prototypes of the helicopter, but it seems those aircraft are only airframe and engine verification models. Neither one appear to have working Longbow radar, PNVS/TADS, cannon, and other weaponry. I saw this aircraft on Discovery Channel's Extreme Machines and knew I had to have a model of it. It didn't help that I also love to play Comanche 4 and Hokum vs Comanche on my PC. Therefore, most of the paint colors I used were based on the games.

The model is molded in olive green styrene, in almost the right shade for the final product. Wire mesh was included in the box for the turbine intakes.

Modeling started with the cockpit as usual. The cockpit had plenty of raised buttons, which I picked out using white, yellow, and red colored pencils. There is a part depicting the turbine blades inside the engine nacelles; however, drybrushing and weathering of that part is probably useless as the intakes have to be covered with wire mesh (I did it anyway). I had a hard time trying to stick the mesh onto the inside of the intake. I don't know if it's because the superglue I used wasn't good enough.

The PNVS/TADS windows were clear parts. Judging by photos from the Internet (and from the games), I used dark yellow on them, not orange as suggested by the instructions. The clear parts also did not fit well.

The canopy was masked using Parafilm-M and I am still amazed how good a masking tool it is. The filling was done using Tamiya putty and wiped down using Cutex acetone.

The inside of the tail rotor had two major seams where the rotor assembly met the two halves of the fuselage. It was not possible to remove those seams. I opted to model my Comanche with weapons bays open, stub wings installed, full weapons load, and gear up. The chopper is very ugly with gear down; it is much sexier "airborne".

Click on images below to see larger images

The main paint color was a mixture of Tamiya acrylics: olive drab, yellow, and green.

The main rotor mast was a strange pentagonal shape and not seen on the real prototypes, as far as I know. The decals were too big and probably the wrong scale. They were so big I couldn't fit two of the "rescue" arrows on the model. The weapons bay hardpoints were all wrong. Panel lines were too wide and too deep.

Hellfires were painted black (as with Apache Hellfires). The Hellfire decals disappeared in the black color because they were black too. Weathering was done using a black sludge wash (paint plus water plus detergent) and a black Gundam water-based marker.

Due to the simple shape of the aircraft (and because the gear were modeled in the up position), I was able to finish this project in less than two months: a quick build for me.

Notwithstanding the many problems with this model, I still like to look at it and it still captures my imagination.

Happy modeling!

Jojo 

Photos and text © by Jojo B Cruz