EC-135 and EC-145 build Questions

Hello Grimmo,

I have built both the EC135 and the EC145 in 1:32. Imho the EC145 goes together better than the EC135. The only problem on the 145 I can remember were the passenger doors: fit was poor and needed a lot of sanding/ cutting; dry fit the doors before glueing in the door windows!

The EC135 has more problems: the frontal glazing has poor fit, the main rotor system around the rotor hub is difficult to model and on my 5 135's the fenestrons had an extreme amount of flash. Removal of the flash has every time resulted in breaking of fine parts...

Don't be discouraged though: when finished, both kits will be worth the efforts!

Good Luck!

 

PS: Guess John/ AirMedical may have more to say on the subject, being the EC135/ EC145 expert he is!

 

Gertjan 

EC135's main rotor is designed to turn the wrong way.

Thanks Gertjan, but I'm far from being an expert.

I can only speak of the 135 for now.  Over all it is a very nice kit.  I now have 4 additional kits to build!  Based on my experiance with the kit.....

Yes, the rotor head is going to be an area of caution.  Not to worry, they are all easy fixes.

 

1.)  It spins in the wrong direction.  Easy to correct.

2.)  The rotorhead assembly MAY be problematic.   (A.)  The flat squared  tabs on the rotors that fit onto the head may fit overly snug resulting in breaking them off.  So you may want to widen the holes a bit bigger.  (B.) The squared tabs when they are all in place MAY crowd tight against one another.  Again, an easy fix.  You you may want to sand the sides down just a bit.

3.)  Do a dry fit of the canopy. The lower nose section of the fuslage MAY be somewhat warped and become out of alignment with the canopy.  Again, An easy fix.

4.)  Assemble the rotor head assembly off the model first then mount it on to the rotor shaft.  That's my opinion.

 5.) depending on which kit you have, you MAY need to fabricate the correct vertical stablizers and lower tail.  Again, easy fix.

6.)  As Gertjan mentioned, watch sanding and trimming the Fenestron.

 

<>With any kit, your first build will always be a learning curve.  This one was my first build and now I know what to expect and look forward to building more.  It's a great kit.  FYI, I made my own wire strikes and external oxygen tanks.

 My EC-135 build as Med Flight Ohio 3

 

<>As for the EC-145,  I don't recall ever hearing anything bad.  But that'll be another one of my wants and fututre projects now that we have one flying in the area for the Cleveland Clinic. 

 

Hope this helps.  Good luck and hope to see pictures of your build in the future!

John 

Look on the bright side, at least you're not doing the 1/72 EC-135. Horrible, horrible kit.

 NTM

Thanks for the help guys. I will probably start off with the 145, and do the 135 later, as i will need some decals made up for the 135. I am going to model the Queensland Rescue Version of the 135. Has a very nice paint job!