1/48 Belcher Bits Westland Lynx Mk95

by Hugo Cabral

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The Westland Super Lynx Mk95

     After 41 years without aviation in their Navy, in 1993 Portugal acquired five Westland Super Lynx Mk95 to equip the “Vasco da Gama” class frigates as organic helicopters. The Lynx was intended to be employed in a primary role as an anti-submarine helicopter, for which it came fitted with the AQS-18 dipping sonar and it could be armed with up to two Mk46 torpedoes. 

     It is usual in the NATO navies for the aircrews to give a name to their helicopter; the “Matrix” was the “Corte-Real” frigate Lynx between 2004 and 2006.
 
The kit

     As it was already mentioned in previous reviews, it’s desirable to have some experience working with resin partss in order to achieve good results with this kit. Against all the advice this was my first resin kit, and I had to compensate my lack of experience with a lot of internet research about how-to build resin models.
 The kit is well detailed but at the same time is somewhat generic since it covers no less than 17 naval Lynx versions.  However, with good photo references and lots of patience many improvements can be made regarding the specific model you want to build.

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Construction

     The resin parts fit reasonably well and all the seams can be perfectly disguised with putty and/or Milliput. I found the panel lines too large, so I filled them with putty and re-scribed them again with a scriber. Many panel and antenna detail were added with vinyl, Evergreen, Milliput, metallic mesh and spare PE´s. Rivet detail was made with a needle, but if it was today I wouldn’t make it since the results are not very satisfactory. 

     Except for the seats all the cabin details were totally scratched. I initially used the original kit instrument panel, but this was wider than the canopy part for what I had to scratch a second one 2mm shorter… 

     The resin landing gear seemed too fragile to support the 200g of the resin kit. All the kit weight is supported by a 1mm drill which is also simulating the Lynx harpoon.

     The Debris Guards seem to be one of the most difficult challenges for this kit modellers. After I tried a few solutions, I choose to make a Millitput mould, cover it with Eduard’s metallic mesh, take back the mould and cut the mesh to the right shape. The frames were made with kitchen aluminium paper. 

     The flight deck base was made with painted sandpaper and the White Ensign’s Carrier Deck Tie Downs photo etch.

Painting, decals and weathering.

     The kit was basically painted with Humbrol enamel 165.

     The kit comes with an excellent decal sheet, but it lacks most of the stencilling. These and the noseart pin-up were made upon order by Black Lion Decals. Some home made decals were also used. 

     The panel lines were lightened with watercolour pencil or oil wash. The smoke stains were made with pastel chalk. 

Conclusion

Early in 2007 was the first time I saw this model in the ARC gallery and it woke up on me a hobby that was sleeping for 10 years. I worked in this model during 17 months in an estimated 300 hours of modelling fun.

More pics of this model building can be seen here

My special thanks to Mike Belcher for producing this kit, to Rui Morgado for all the teaching, to Miguel Amaral for the decals and to all Modelismo-na-Net modellers for their kind support.

Hugo 

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Photos and text © by Hugo Cabral