1/35 Huey search

I am no rotor head at all, but I have a 1/35 UH-1D in the stash. It is the old Panda kit reboxed by Dragon with some figures and PE parts. The kit itself isn't that bad, but I'd suggest replacing hte interior. CMK offers 2 sets for it.

I don't know if that stuff is still in production though (my LHS has 2 kits of them, but they also stock some other OOB kits...)

There should be a UH-1C by Academy as well...

I had similar issues when looking for the Academy 1/35 Huey Frog, I tried to find it all over the place, most sellers appear to be South Korean, Taiwanese, or Chinese and I had a number of ebay and other sales fall through.

I finally found one on a French site called Cherbourg Maquettes, but it cost me more than what is a reasonable price for a model kit I think (nearly £40 inc. postage).

My advice is if you want the Academy 1/35 UH-1C Frog (and everyone recommends it, and so would I) keep looking bud, they are out there but you have to look, and look, and look, and look, and look, and look...

The Academy 1/35 Huey Heavy Hog (the one with the square box of rockets armament system) seems slightly more readily available, so it depends on what you want to arm it with, I personally wanted the Frog because I wanted the XM21 Minigun system (and I like the Ace of Spade artwork) and it also comes with the weapons systems of the Heavy Hog kit.

If you want to go 1/48 and want a UH-1C/B about the only options you have are the Hobby Boss kit (which I've read is a poor kit), or the Revell (of Germany)/Monogram Huey Hog, they are readily available it seems, and cheap, but personally I think it's a shockingly bad kit for today, the fuselage fit is terrible, the plastic is seriously thin (seems like 10though plasticard in places, and we all should now how "floppy" that stuff is). 

Personally I think Revell have a nerve selling it still considering it's such an old kit and is so bad (their HH-3E Jolly Green is a much better kit in terms of fitment and is from the same era)!

Other than that if you want a UH-1D I believe you have only the Panda/Dragon kits (same kit different producer as I understand it) in 1/35 and having looked around myself they're not readily available either (the UH-1N seems to be though).

In 1/48 I don't think there is a good UH-1D that is readily available, Lindberg make one but it's not a good kit from what I've read, you could keep your eyes open for an old ESCI (also sold as AMT/ERTL) UH-1D, or Italeri UH-1D but I've only seen a couple around (Ray (rotorwash) kindly gave me an ESCI UH-1D (before I started seeing them around) so perhaps others can do the same for you)

Don't know about in local hobby stores because I live in the UK (in N. Essex) and we don't have any decent LHS's here...

Basically for any UH-1C/UH-1D it seems like a case of keep looking, and hope you find one or some kind sole who has one in their stash is willing to sell you one

Hope that helps.

ACADEMY 1/35 HELI UH1C HUEY FROG IS AVAILABLE AT 

 $37.99 I passed this on to somebody else but had no feedback !! There are a couple more sites if you are interested

That,s AUS dollars so it will be less depending on what country you're in

That,s AUS dollars so it will be less depending on what country you're in

Any difference due to exchange rates will negated by the shipping costs. 

At least that's what I find when having stuff shipped to the UK, most stuff when you add shipping comes to what you would pay for it from a seller within the UK, and ends up being the same cost as in the original currency (i.e. $37.99 AUS will equal £37.99 when shipping is added).  Perhaps shipping to the US is a bit cheaper though.

The 1/35 UH-1Cs are not that hard to find.  There are a bunch of the them, Academy and Seminar (which are about the same quality as the Academy ones, a little less detailed, but close) on Ebay right now.  Some reasonably priced too.

www.ebay.com/.../i.html

Depends where you live Gino.

For example the 1st one only ships to the US, so if like me you live in the UK that rules that seller out (no probs for cygnusx1 as I'm guessing he's in the US), and the 2nd wants $31.24 plus an estimated $23.54 customs charge to ship to the UK, making the price unreasonable, especially as the base price is $69.99.  You're talking about over $100 when the kit arrives in the UK!!

The Taiwanese seller (all 3 of those ones in Taiwan are the same seller, which makes me wonder if they're legit) charges $20 minimum for shipping (across the board, no matter where you live), but even so that brings the total cost for the 1st Seminar kit listed to $65.32.

I don't call any of that reasonably priced.  I call that =>2x the price they should be.  I don't even think the one I bought from France was fairly priced, at nearly $55 inc shipping.

Guess it's the difference between living in the US and living in the UK.  Different perspectives. 

Yup, sorry about the taxes and tarrifs to the UK.  There are some benefits to the USPS and our free trade with practically everywhere.

As to the Tiawan seller for the Seminar kits, it isn't an issue, nothing sketchy about it.  Seminar is made in Tiawan, so that is where they sell them from.