Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The 1/18 scale Black Hawk by BBI is a clear winner. Big, robust and near-scale. It's clearly not detailed enough to be regarded as a fine-scale model, but it is much more accurately rendered than you would expect with a toy. It's suitable to either hang from a 10 year old boy's bedroom ceiling right through to being highly suitable for use as a training aid in military ops rooms or military classrooms (and everything in between). Great for aviation buffs of all ages.
It is particularly robust, being molded in a very, very tough plastic. So far as scale accuracy is concerned, the overall initial impression is that it is very accurate although close inspection reveals that it is not as accurate as first thought. Most notable is the tail rotor is vertical rather than being canted 20 degrees to the left in the real thing. The nose contour is just a little too blunt and the flight deck windows could have been done better, particularly the chin and overhead roof windows (the roof windows are way too small). The roof fairing above the cockpit leading back to the rotor hub is a little too big and blunt. Flight deck detail is good. The crew chief windows are a single piece and don't open (rather than being a 2-piece sliding unit on the real thing). Because these key windows don't open the modeller is prevented from fitting weapons. The main wheels are just a little undersize. The main cabin sliding doors are excellent. The main cabin behind the flight deck is only very sparsely detailed. The rear fuselage is contoured accurately but only has a "token" couple of rows of rivets and they are much too oversize. The vertical stabilzer is too thick (when studied from the front) and is also covered with "token" rows of non-scale oversize rivets. The lower trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer isn't cambered to the left like on the real thing. The stabilator needed some filing to get it to fit - it clicks into place, but will detach fairly easily during play. The stabilator is flat (uncambered) but is otherwise raesonably faithfully rendered to depict an older A model tapered stabilator, whereas many real black hawks now have the L model rectangular stabilator with 4 trailing edge hand holds (as used on the Sea Hawk).
The main rotors are impressive and very tough. They are correctly twisted but when studied from above you'll notice they clearly and (for me, annoyingly) curve slightly forward from root to tip (the real blades do not, although many photographs give that impression because they are twisted and droop at rest). The blades are too thick but probably need to be for toughness. By the way, the blades on the Amazon sample picture are set up to spin in the wrong direction! The rotor assembly just plugs into the fuselage when pushed with a bit of force and then can spin fairly freely. I can imagine that the rotor assembly will unplug from the fuselage during rugged play, but I don't think the fuselage would break unless dropped from the garage roof (and the kids shouldn't be up there anyway). I wouldn't recommend hanging it from the rotors only - the fuselage could be pulled away reasonably easily.
The only defect with this model as it came out of the box is that the left mainwheel on mine was turned about 25 degrees out to the left. This appears to be a widespread fault with the molded left mainwheel strut because I've seen it on pictures of other samples I've seen on the Internet. The purchaser probably won't be able to fix this fault because the left wheel strut is made from unbelievably tough plastic that is plastic-welded deep up inside the body of the model. The leg strut can't be detached by the purchaser so getting a replacement strut from Blue Box probably won't be the solution. This fault annoyed me so much I ultimately cut the existing struts off and machined a full metal replacement set fitted with 36mm fine-scale wheels and epoxied them in place. This would be beyond the skills of most purchasers who will probably have to live with it if their example has the same defect. I'm also sanding off the oversized rear fuselage rivets on mine, making up a rectangular stabilator and painting it in Australian camouflage colours to be an Australian S70A-9.
Despite this catalog of nitpickings, I still thoroughly recommend this product. Because of its huge size - 35 inch rotor span - it's an absolute drawcard and conversation piece that people simply won't put down. It perhaps lies midway between a toy and a fine-scale model but I'm sure no-one will be disappointed. It'll last a long time in a kid's sandpit and much longer in Dad's study. Great value for money.
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