Well, I know the GB is over, but I thought I would post photos of my kit. GBs are a curse for me - something always happens to keep me from finishing in time. I would have been done by the deadline - all I had to do was attach the rotors and finish a couple other odds and ends - but my mom had a stroke February 16. I have spent the last couple weeks at the hospital; model building has understandably taken a back seat for now. Anyhow, today I realized I missed the deadline, so I took a few minutes to attach the rotors and take a few pictures:
This was the Italeri 1/48 scale OH58A kit. It is a reasonably good representation of the early Alpha model. I flew an OH58C mod during Desert Storm. The windscreen is correct for the style aircraft I flew, but the exhaust stacks are wrong, there is no seat armor, the seats are wrong and there is no wire strike protection system. I have a 1/48 Heller kit of the aircraft. I planned on attaching the wire strike blades from that kit to this kit, but given the family medical emergency, I did not have time to finish that part. My Desert Storm aircrat also had a two rail Stinger launcher on the left side (where the minigun was originally attached). I may buy this kit again, do a little scratchbuilding of the missing/incorrect parts and see if I can create a more accurate version of what I flew. I left the front doors off - we flew without them most of the time since it was so darn hot.
I was a bit rushed on this kit from the start, and it shows. I had some issues fitting the fuselage halves together and fillling the resulting gaps. The doors did not fit well and the tail rotor gearbox was missing (a tail boom molding defect). There is also a gap along the top of the front windscreen. The paint job is not the best either - I am not the best at making monotone colors look realistic. But...learning from my mistakes, I will hopefully do a better job next time.
I realize I am not eligible for the badge for this group build since I missed the deadline. But since I was so close to finishing, I thought I would at least post some photos.
Russ