The MQ-8B Fire Scout is complete. This week I applied the kit decals for HSM-35. The decals were very nice. They went down nicely. The kit does not come with clear parts for the navigation lights. I used some scrap clear styrene and made the four lights. (One on top, one under, and the two side lights). Finally I worked on the rotors. The tail rotor is all photo etch and fits perfectly into its resin mount. The main rotor is a little tricky. There is a cup at the end to attach it to the hub. This cup is larger than the pin on the hub so there is a lot of play. Getting the rotor blades aligned takes some care. I taped down the ends of the blades using the work surface grid to line them up then positioned the hub in the center. Once I had everything lined up I glued them into place. I finally attached the nose turret and this completed the aircraft.
The kit itself goes together very well. It would have been nice if they included a jig for the main rotors similar to the jigs you typically see with resin propeller sets for aircraft kits. The only fit issue was the nose to the main body but a little putty and some sanding corrected it. The decal set matched the reference photos except for the turret decals that were not included. If you want to try your hand at a resin kit, this would make a good start. It is not very complicated and it is an interesting subject.
The final photo is the aircraft on the display shelf sitting next to my 1/48 AH-64 so this should give you an idea on how small this drone is in scale. Thanks for following along.
Check out all the photos and details from start to finish in my build log at https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-mq-8b-fire-scout-drone/
7 attached images. Click to enlarge.
