1/72 Special Hobby 

Hiller H-12/23 Raven & 

Hughes TH-55A Osage 

by Chuck Holte

Special Hobby created two important kits for any 1/72nd scale collection of US Army helicopters.  The H-23, Kit 72017, is a transition utility and training aircraft bridging the
Special Hobby TH-55	period  from Korea to Viet Nam; the TH-55, Kit 72016, was a primary training	Special Hobby UH-12/23
aircraft from the late ‘60s to the late ‘80s.  Both types can still be found flying for a living in their civil markings, dusting crops and reporting local traffic conditions.

Although the kits differ in appearance (other than a rotor on the roof and tail) they are similar in molding and construction.  Both employ lots of small, tube-like parts with a fair amount of flash, difficult vacuform canopy joints and small resin parts difficult to remove from the casting block.  On the plus side, they both have excellent resin cast fuselage and engine blocks, instruction sheets and decal options to please most everyone.   

The resin fuselage and engine block parts formed the starting point for both kits.  I did have a problem with some of the smaller resin parts, as they were almost impossible to separate from the casting blocks without damage.  In the end, I just made new parts from scratch.   

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Special Hobby UH-12/23

Being a lazy modeler, I look for ways to save time and effort.  I dislike shaving flash from small tubular parts while trying to maintain an acceptable cross-section, so I used stretched sprue and pre-formed plastic and brass rod whenever possible.  I assumed that the basic length and diameter of the kit parts were correct and used them as patterns to cut parts from plastic or brass rod.   

The most difficult challenge in both kits was the vacuformed canopy.  Both kit canopies were formed in two parts with seams along canopy frame lines, horizontal in the case of the Raven and vertical in the case of the Osage.  The joint between the two parts must be nearly square to achieve a fine superglue bond strong enough to withstand some handling and still be within scale for a canopy frame line.  The vacuformed parts are very clear and thin but, unfortunately, only one set per kit.  I cut too deeply on the Raven canopy and was unable to save it, but an email to Special Hobby in the Czech Republic, office@mpm.cz, brought an airmailed replacement within ten days.  Excellent customer service from MPM! 

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Special Hobby TH-55

The instruction sheets are outstanding!  Excellent detail, parts position and dimensional data.  Lots of drawings to show the shape and size of parts and how they should all fit together. This should be the industry standard for model kit instructions.  Painting instructions and decals for the Raven cover one aircraft each from the California Air National Guard (1962) in olive drab, yellow and red; an Army UH-12 in mostly white with red trim; and a British Fleet Air Arm HTE-2 in blue and yellow.  The TH-55 features schemes from the US Army, 1964, in red and yellow; Swedish Air Force, 1988, in light olive; Japan Defense Force in black; and a civil version in overall white with black skids and rotor blades. 

Although these kits present challenges, they are accurate representations of the real aircraft and, at $10-12 each, a value for the money. 

Chuck

Photos and text © 2003 by Chuck Holte