Aerospatiale Gazelle SA341F

Putty needed to make the front of the instrument panel the same width as the rest of the unit.  

Left side. Sanding the putty was not easy. 

Right side. 

Instrument panel now painted and glued in place. 

Close up view. Dry brushing the dials worked reasonably well, given that I had to use the wrong kind of paint. 

What a real one looks like. 

Cockpit this far. 

Flash on to show the rear seats. 

I’ve read that this kit is a tail sitter so I flattened some fishing weights and glued them to the floor. I’m also including 2 crew figures. Hopefully it’s enough. 

Before and after flattening. Each flat piece is half of a weight. 

Rocket tube. Pretty representative of how well the 6 fit together. And this is after I sanded the sides to remove the ejector pins and line them up as best I could. 

To get the pilot’s arms remotely close to the cyclic and collective he gained some serious weight. He now has very broad shoulders, but still looks more proportional than the figures included in the kit. 

Using Mr. Putty over regular putty to fill and cover the weight gain. 

This is what the kit came with. I’ll post a side-by-side shot once the putty has dried. 

Pilot figures side-by-side. PJ Production’s is infinitely better than the Spaceballs figures provided by Fujimi 

Side by side in the cockpit. 

Fits reasonably well.  

I want the gunner’s head facing straight into the gunsight…  

…So I had to behead him first. (I also cut off his right foot, but that was an accident. Don’t worry - he got better.) 

Crap - now he needs a neck. 

Yay, fixing sink marks! My favorite!!  

Test fitting the engine covers. Why don’t they fit properly? 

Because Fujimi put locator pins on BOTH sides. Obviously. 

And we have a pilot! 

Fits pretty well too! 

Rear view. 

And we have a copilot/weapons officer! 

Yeah, they’ll be a bit cozy in there. The pilot doesn’t look too amused. 

Overhead view. 

There’s an impressive panel gap when you line up the engine cover with the fuselage halves. 

Trying to fit the cockpit windows and roof is a NIGHTMARE. The plastic warped on one side, nothing lines up properly, and there are no useful locator pins. 

Tail glued together at the fenestron. Note the panel gap that seems to be needed to make the front windows to somewhat line up. Sigh… 

Took a break from playing cockpit Tetris to check whether I had put enough weight in the cockpit. Good news - it won’t be a tail sitter! 

Slowly making progress on the cockpit. I don’t think there’s any chance of everything lining up and sitting flush, but hopefully it won’t look too bad. Not sure how I’ll discreetly fit a brace into the cockpit though - maybe it’ll be for the pilots to hang their dry cleaning?
 

I finally figured out why the roof won’t sit properly - even with the brace, the copilot’s helmet is too close to the side windows. Sigh…Time for some surgery on the copilot’s helmet. 

Surgery has begun. 

Things still don’t line up perfectly, but the cockpit is starting to look decent. Hopefully I’ll finish the surgery tomorrow and get the roof in place. 

This was the only way to get the cockpit and roof panels to come close to lining up without some major sanding of the clear canopy. Time to find out how good I am at filling a monster panel gap. Thankfully, the section where the tail and body meet will be covered by the engine. 

Gap filled, hopefully. Primer don’t let me down! 

Started on the decals and the red ones really showed their age. Not sure yet if I’ll try to fix them or just scrap them entirely. 

Because I’m a masochist (and because I found this build online britmodeller.com/for..fujimi-done-for-now/), I’m now trying to scratch build an overhead panel for the cockpit. Here’s what it should look like. 

Another view. 

What I’ve got so far. 

Close up view. 

Side by side with the actual roof. 

Finally glued the roof in place. Not sure if it’s the kit or my sanding, but there will be major gaps to fill. 

Waiting for the primer to dry. 

Sigh…glued the skids on only to have one break off while painting the fuselage…  

The culprit, along with various other parts that will need to be glued on after painting. 

Finally got around to posting some photos of the finished kit.