Revell 04905, Bell UH-1 "Huey" helicopter in 1:24 scale

Some time ago I've finished assembling a helicopter model plastic kit. A friend of mine, Eryk, keeps nagging me to share the results of my work. He's right, the blog post covering this particular topic is now very, very late. But... better late than never, right?

The product I will be describing is Revell 04905, and it's a 1:24 scale reproduction of a very well known aircraft: Bell UH-1 "Huey". I got the set as a Christmas gift, and I hope to use it on my garden layout. Its size seems to fit just perfectly. According to the box, the model is around 50cm long and wide.

The kit is marked with a "skill level 5" tag, which indicates the highest tier of complexity. Well, we will see...

Many of the provided parts are dark green. This seems like a good color choice for people going for the default, military look.

Two pilots will be in control of the helicopter. And what a coincidence - they're identical twins!

Some parts are silver or transparent. And again - in many cases that's exactly the color the model is going to need.

The manual is a long and detailed one. I would never expect less from a "skill level 5" set.

Two sheets of decals are included, too. They look perfectly fine, but personally I do not like them that much. They imply a war-themed model, which is not something I'm after.

The build starts with the interior. And that means we have to begin painting the parts right away, since later we won't be able to access them. Here's my attempt at coloring the pilots and the cabin.

From here on it's just many, many evenings of work. It's a lot of painting, waiting for the items to dry, painting again, and then finally gluing parts together. Personally I would not rate the difficulty as the "highest possible", since everything is so large on this model. Yes, it's a lot of work, but very little of that is really challenging or frustrating.

I really did not want any military aircraft. And so I've skipped adding the guns and painted the helicopter in "happy" colors. It's a civilian aircraft now. Here's what it looks like...

My colleague, Eryk, frequently commented on my painting technique. He warned me that too much paint could make some of the details disappear. He was obviously right, but I really wanted the model to be nice and shiny and I needed a good coat of paint. Some fine details are indeed gone, but there's still a lot to admire.


The very last photo is my biggest accomplishment. I have not used any of the provided decals and instead painted a custom registration number. A dedicated cut-out produced with my wife's cutting plotter was used here to help my artistic skills. The result is quite good, I think.

Of course I'm aware that identifiers starting with "ST" are reserved for Sudan. But those also happen to be the first two letters of my last name...

I'm in the process of preparing a helipad platform for my model. It will feature some strobe lights, and it will be installed on my garden layout. The helicopter will go along with it. I'm hoping for some spectacular effect :)