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Ramon R. Lomeli
49 articles

1/48 scale Italeri AH-1W Cobra, Glamoc Gunnery Range, Bosnia Herzegovina, 1998

November 13, 2014 · in Aviation · · 31 · 2.2K

Hello all! from my "Good from Afar but Far from Good" collection, I present to you my AH-1W . It is the kit with the following upgrades:

  • Cobra Company cockpit
  • Cobra Company exhaust correction kit
  • scratch-built enlarged oil cooler behind the skids
  • Two Bobs "Whiskeys In The Mix" decal set, modified to represent an aircraft I took a picture of while at gunnery qualifications on deployment in Bosnia, 1997-98
  • custom home made SFOR decals to complete the bosnia deployment decals
  • scratch-built skid cross tubes made from aluminum tubing to represent the present configuration of skids, as opposed to the skids with fairings as seen on older cobra versions

i also corrected the main rotor blades, since out of the box they were oriented in the wrong direction, so the rotor head spun the wrong way. this kit is not a bad kit, but you really need to correct an awful lot to make it accurate, and i didnt realize just how inaccurate it was until i was well past the point of no return. i would gladly build another one, but i would correct a lot more as well. anyways, it still came out not bad, and it represents a day out of my past that i get to look at every day, so this one is one of the personal builds in my collection. Thanks for checking in!

Cheers!

-Ramon

Reader reactions:
8Β  Awesome

10 additional images. Click to enlarge.


31 responses

  1. The biggest, baddest looking Cobra of them all! Look ur Whiskey!

    Bo

  2. Nicely done and photographed, Ramon...I love it!

  3. I really admire the way you guys modify your kits to make them more accurate, I'm sure I would just give up. Here's another quote: "Nice to see it, to see it, nice!" UK people will recognise this!

  4. WOW! A great looking bird. I just love these helicopter gunships. I can't believe that manufacturers can't get rid of all these errors in their kits. I always wonder if the mainstream kit producers don't do this in order to keep the aftermarket guys in business. Maybe they just want to improve our scratchbuilding abilities. πŸ˜‰ Well done!

    • Thanks Morne! yeah, sometimes it makes you wonder if they ever even saw the real thing when they were tooling their molds. over time, i have learned to just accept the challenge and still have fun while i become a temporary subject matter expert!

  5. Now that is cool Ramon. Your weathering is wonderful. Great modeling!
    California Steve

  6. Well done Ramon, that's a fine looking Cobra you captured. Never understood why the Army went with the Apache when the could have had "Sea Snake's" a lot sooner and cheaper.

  7. Great Cobra, nicely detailed and well photgraphed, well done. Like Morne said, its hard to believe that BIG manufacturers made so many errors, i read this quite often, that rotors turn on models in the wrong direction !
    Great weathering as well, a perfect build Ramon πŸ™‚

  8. Great job !
    this Cobra is beautiful...I've see the real in Bosnia near Sarajevo...

  9. Nice cobra mate! I'm doing one of these myself right now!

  10. Nice looking helo.

  11. Great work mate. I like it πŸ™‚

  12. Another fine build Ramon.
    Your eye for detailing continues.
    Well done mate.

  13. Nice one Ramon - I like that you included the photo of the real bird as well - and always love a story tying an 'experience' to the model. Thanks very much for posting it!

    • thanks Paul! its the personal builds that bring me the most satisfaction, even though sometimes i get fixated on all the details. that's when i take a page from the book of Sheppard Paine, and remember to SIMULATE, not DUPLICATE... were it not for his wisdom, i might never finish anything!

  14. darn nice...your too modest

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