VH-71 “Marine One”
EH-101
Proposed U.S. Presidential Helicopter

Italeri, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Glen Porter

Italeri's 1/72 scale HO4S-3 will be available online from Squadron.com

Background

The EH-101 was designed and built by a partnership of Agusta of Italy and G.K.N. Westland of Great Britain. It first took to the air in 1987 and now equips the R.A.F. And Royal Navy as the EH-101 Merlin, Canadian Armed Forces as the EH-101 Cormorant and of coarse the Italian Navy. It's also been ordered by Denmark, Portugal and Japan and has been offered to the U.S.A. as the US-101. The U.S. Marines have selected it as a replacement for their VH-3D as Marine One for the U.S. President. It should enter this role in about 2009.

The Model

This is the fourth EH-101 that Italeri have released. I suspect they have taken one of the earlier kits and marked the appropriate parts “not for use”, added new decals, instructions and box art.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The “A” sprue has the main forward fuselage parts, most of the interior, undercarriage and tail. “B” has the odd looking rotors, most of the rotor head and tail rotor. “C” sprue carries centre fuselage, forward fuselage side panels, outer engine cowlings, main undercarriage winglets, two piece rear ramp, passenger seats (marked not for use) and the rest of the rotor head parts. All of these parts are beautifully moulded in Olive Drab plastic with a very high level of detail. There are 12 parts on the “A” and “C” sprues marked “not for use”.

The 20 parts on the clear sprue are very clear and thin with no distortion.

Not surprisingly, decals are supplied for one aircraft. All necessary markings included plus all the pin-striping. Colours are called out in the instructions and on a full page paint/decal marking sheet with reference to Model Master paints.

I think the fact that Italeri has provided no interior detail for the passenger area is because they simply did not have the relevant information as the aircraft is not due to take on these duties until 2009.

So, unless you want to wait until that detail is available, it may just be better to model the side door closed.

This will be a very interesting model to build as indeed the others EH-101s will be also. Just how much of the colour scheme is speculation I don't know but, either way, it will create interest where ever you show it.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Italeri for the review sample