Herpa COMOPSAIR C-130 1:500
|
|
|
Wings900 Reviews Military Aircraft
|
|
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 |
Description
| |
The Belgian Air Force (Now the Air Component, of the Belgian Armed Forces).was founded in 1909 as a branch of the Belgian Army. It originally carried the name of Compagnie des Ouvries et Aérostiers. On October 15, 1946, the Belgian military aviation was turned into an autonomous force, independent of the Belgian Army. The entrance into service for the Belgian C-130H was between 24/07/1972 (CH-01) and 02/04/1973 (CH-12) and the home base is Melsbroek. The C-130 is used by the 20ste squadron. This squadron is together with the 21ste squadron the 15th transportwing. The symbol of the wing is the Sioux-indian. The C-130 dispose of STOL-quality's (Short Take-Off and Landing), this means that the plane needs only a small strip to land or take-off This is very useful when they use improvised "airports" in Africa, where COMOPSAIR C-130s are commonly used. This aircraft was painted in this paint scheme was used during the early 90s to celebrate the first 20 years of C-130 operations in the Belgian Air Force (as it was called then).
Sources: http://users.telenet.be/C130/C-130index.htm and Wikipedia.
|
Model Details
| | Manufacturer:
Airline: COMOPSAIR
Make: ie. Belgian Air Force
Model: C-130H
Scale:
1:500
Part Number: 509497
|
Model Review
| | Mould & Assembly: There is really nothing new to the mould since my last C-130 review so here we go again…
Starting with the bad things about this model, one thing caught my attention, the nose area. The nose itself is a little bit to pointy but that’s a minor issue. Just as other reviewers commented about the C130H-30, the nose gear is correctly placed, but is it much too tall and the tire much too small. This makes the model look weird and makes it sit, strange… The main gears look ok, as does the main gear doors. The horizontal stabilizer looks ok too, even if they might be a little bit thick. The vertical stabilizer has the correct shape, but has an ugly joint to the fuselage and is lacking the correct details.
The wings look great and are connected directly into the side of the fuselage and this is a good thing as the seams are almost invisible.
The engine pylons look strange and even if the props are able to spin freely, they are way too thick. But the Hercules is a tiny model and it may be impossible to do this better without using resin parts. In all (apart from the nose gear) it looks like a C-130H.
Realism: The livery is something special on this bird and it looks great. This paint scheme was used during the early 90’s to celebrate the first 20 years of C-130 operations in the Belgian Air Force (as it was called then). Herpa manage to reproduce this paint scheme pretty well. The only small detail is where the white meets the green. Here it looks a little sloppy. The cockpit windows is really the only thing that lowers the notes for this aircraft, it is really bad and makes it looks like a toy.
Details: Details, details, details. Sure there are some basic details, but it lacks a lot of details. I miss the air-condition inlet on starboard side of the nose, I miss all the lumps, bumps and antennas, I miss the intake for the cargo compartment air condition in front of the main gear, etc etc. As this is a military aircraft all these details and decals make the model looks so much better. The cockpit windows are fairly well placed.
|
Pluses
| | A military model… I like that.
Beautiful paint scheme
Nice wings
|
Minuses
| | The nose gear
Details, details details
Cockpit windows
|
Photos
Editor review: Herpa COMOPSAIR (Belgium) C-130
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
|
| Overall rating |
|
6.5 |
| Mould & Assembly |
|
8.0 |
| Realism |
|
6.0 |
| Details |
|
5.0 |
| Overall Impression |
|
7.0 |
|
Was this review helpful to you?
Report this review
User reviews
There are no user reviews for this item.
To write a review please register or login.
 |
