DML 1/72 Sea King HC.4 Falklands War Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King was an amphibious anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter developed for the US Navy in the late 1950s. Powered by two turbine engines, this aircraft would be the first capable of performing the hunter (search) and killer (destroy) missions with a single aircraft. The airframe was very flexible and the Sea King would also serve in the search and rescue as well as the utility missions not to mention retrieving manned spacecraft that splashed down in the ocean.

The aircraft was license-built by Westland for service with the Royal Navy and RAF performing similar missions as their US counterparts. The Royal Navy has also developed some unique configurations of the Sea King, most notably the AEW.2 which serves as the AWACS for their carriers. The British Sea Kings saw combat in a number of wars including the Falklands where they guarded the fleet from submarines, flew troops and supplies to shore, and even acted as Exocet decoys.

DML has produced this very nice kit of the Sea King in 1/72 scale. While certainly not the first kit of this subject in this scale (Airfix, Revell, and others have released their own toolings of this aircraft), this it certainly one of the nicest I've seen to date. Molded in light gray styrene, the kit is presented on four parts trees plus one tree of clear parts. Among the features and options of this kit:

• Nicely detailed flight deck
• Detailed main cabin with troop seating
• Door gun
• Winch
• Positionable crew entry door
• Positionable main cabin door
• Positionable tail (folded or flight position)
• Choice of folded main rotor, drooped main rotor, or flight main rotor

The kit has some very nice detailing from the equipped main cabin to the interesting main rotor options. In this kit, there are two sets of main rotors, both with droop molded into the parts. In one set, the droop is molded downward simulating the doop of main rotor at rest and these are used in your choice of folded/stowed or unfolded. The other set is drooped upward simulating the aircraft in flight with a heavy load.

This kit has markings for six examples:

• Sea King HC-4, ZA290, 846 NAS, HMS Hermes, 1982
• Sea King HC-4, ZA299, 846 NAS, HMS Hermes, 1982
• Sea King HC-4, ZD476, 846 NAS, HMS Hermes, 1982
• Sea King HC-4, ZD485, 846 NAS, HMS Hermes, 1982
• Sea King HC-4, ZE425, 846 NAS, HMS Hermes, 1982
• Sea King HC-4, ZE426, 846 NAS, HMS Hermes, 1982

The instructions didn't provide any information on the six aircraft provided in this set, there is instead a leftover identification from a WW2 subject left by mistake. The instructions do provide painting and decal placement instructions for the Sea King.

This looks to be one of the nicest releases of the Sea King in this scale to date and it will be interesting to see if DML produces other variants of the Sea King in either British or US configurations.

My sincere thanks to DML for this review sample!