It appears that I haven’t posted to the forum in a few months…
Anyway, I’ve just purchased Dragon’s SH-60F and HH-60H twin pack in 1/144, and they both appear to be great kits. I haven’t started work yet, as I’m on holiday, and I don’t have any of my supplies with me, but I’ve inspected the parts and instructions, and they seem to be all right. Dragon has been nice enough to include a miniscule photoetch sprue for the HH-60H slide door sildy-thingies, which is great, but it looks like it will be hard to work with. I plan on purchasing Dragon’s EA-18G Growler on CVN deck for the base of a diorama and put one of these hawks on a stand of clear polystyrene rod, which will be nice.
Anyway, I have a question. I was looking at reviews of Dragon’s 1/144 Twin Packs on the IPMS review site, and I noticed that the reviewers often only build one of the two kits provided in the box, which is odd, as they are often designed to be quick builds to be built together. Anyway, that just may be my lack of knowledge in the area of kit stashes, as I just buy a kit whenever I have the money, because I buy my models on allowance and the occasional side job payment (high school budget is tight).
Anyway, it’s incredibly nice of Dragon to provide two small kits in one box.
You really never state what your question is so…
I have several of Dragon’s twin kits, one of which is a combo of an F/A-18E ‘Super Hornet’ and an EA-18G ‘Growler’. They have the option of building the wings either extended or folded-something unusual for many kits, let alone a kit in 1/144 scale! They seem to be good kits so far, as I only partially assembled them, but got distracted. Be careful with the intakes as I cemented mine totally wrong and had to scrap my first build (I bought more). The EA-18G is the same kit with substitutions of parts to convert it to a 2 seater, and the needed ALQ-99 jammer pods (4 provided) to hang beneath, plus a set of AGM-88’s to mount under the wings and an AIM-120 to be mounted against the lower fuselage on the right with some sort of another pod that get mounted on the left (not sure what it is). The outer wing tip rails must be carefully removed, and a set of ALQ-218 receiver pods are cemented in their place. Some brass PE frets provide fins for these pods. I haven’t completed building these, but they are much better than their earlier F-18 offerings, which had closed intakes and shallow wheel bays.
Here is a cool pic of the Growler
(Click me!)
I guess the other pod I mentioned above is this: The AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR), which is only shown as a possible future load configuration. Guess I would use a couple of the AIM-120’s.
oh whoops my question was why do people usually only build one of the kits provided and stah the other
I have several of these kits including the Platz kits which come with a nice set of PE that includes the windscreen wipers and hand holds behind the front doors. My plan is to do a little kit bashing to build a super detailed MH-60G. I will need some donor parts to build it with open doors for the front weapon stations.I use the extra cockpit parts to dress up other 1/144 kits that are lacking. See my F-15 WIP.
