What MFGs are best for helicopter models?

I mostly build 1/72, so there may be some differences for the larger scales. As always your particular interests may also result in some variation. Helicopters are far less popular with the manufacturers so the options are not like other aircraft, you frequently have to take what you can get.

Italeri and Revell of Germany seem to offer the most kits, many reboxed from the other. Italeri also picked up a lot of the older Esci kits. Overall these two are probably the most reliably good kits although they are not without issues.

Academy, Fujimi and Hasegawa have a few helicopters most are good kits. The Hasegawa and Fujimi Huey's are not generally considered as good as the Italeri ones.

Hobbyboss is a fairly recent addition. Their Soviet helicopters have been well received, but most of their US helos have had issues. Their recent Seahawks seem to be an improvement over their earlier attempts.

Zvesda is one of the few options for regular production injection molded Soviet helicopters.

You may find some helicopter kits from Tamiya, but these are actually reboxed Italeri kits.

First off, welcome to the forum!

My picks for Best/Most helo kits (note I am basically talking about US helos here):

1/144-DML

1/100-Accurate Miniatures/Revell (The Revell kits have much better decals but are otherwise the same as the Accurate miniatures kit)

1/87 Rocco- Not a lot of choices here

1/72 ITALERI, ITALERI, ITALERI!

1/48 No real winner here that I can tell, but Italeri has a pretty good selection as well as Revell/Monogram

1/35 Academy/MRC and Dragon

1/32 Revell but they are all OLD for the most part.

That's my picks, I'm interested to hear others thoughts on this one?

HTH

   Ray

The question is too broad.  What you are asking is equivalent to "Who makes the best hamburger?"  All modeling companies have good and bad kits.  It is better to decide what helicopter and scale you want to model, then ask who makes the best kit of helo X in Y scale.  You will get a much more definitive answer that way. 

ok, ive only made scale model planes, whats the best scale for helicopters to start in?

crzypenguin007 wrote:

ok, ive only made scale model planes, whats the best scale for helicopters to start in?

 I think you'll find that depends on who you ask. Some folks only build 1/72, other's 1/48 etc.  However, i build in any scale and in my opinion 1/72 is the best scale to start in with helos.  There are lots of options and Italeri makes a bunch of helo kits.  I happen to be partial to Hueys, but i can tell you that the Italeri UH-1B, and UH-1F kits build into fairly accurate models.  Also, Hobby Boss has just released a slew of 1/72 helo kits.  Their Russian birds are supposed to be pretty good.  however, for most US helos I still prefer Italeri as the HB US helo kits have some pretty noticeable deficiencies.  Anyway, that's my two cents.  For an relatively easy OOB build, I say 1/72 is the way to go.

    Ray

 By the way, many, if not most, Revell and Tamiya 1/72 kits are just reboxed Italeri kits.   

I build almost exclusively in 1/72, a big part of that was due to selection. The relatively low cost didn't hurt either. In general helicopters are smaller than fixed wing aircraft, some 1/72 helicopters are down right tiny which can be an issue for some people.

As Gino mentioned your interest plays a big part too. I like the odd and obscure, 1/72 by far beats the other scales here.

1/48 still offers a pretty good selection of subjects, the kits are larger and generally better detailed than 1/72. Your options in 1/35 are fairly limited but the list of available kits is growing. There is a decent selection in most scales for the major military helos, Huey, Hind, Blackhawk etc.