1:35 CH-54A Tarhe radio equipment compartment with technicians (3 pcs) for ICM kit

The flying crane and the people around it

The Sikorsky CH-54A Tarhe was a machine without a fuselage in the usual sense of the word. Between the tall cabin and the tail boom there remained only a bare frame, under which loads, engineer pods or the fuselages of shot-down aircraft were slung. In Vietnam it returned hundreds of damaged helicopters to service thanks to that, and its crew had a rearward-facing seat at the back so that the operator could look directly at the load.

The cabinets of the radio equipment belonged precisely in the space behind the cabin, and the technicians reached them through a panel that swung open. The set casts this cutaway complete with the shelves and the instrument blocks and adds three figures of ground personnel at the moment when the equipment is being worked on. The figures have a more civilian posture than combat sets, which gives the scene the calm of a maintenance apron.

How to use it in a scene

• Three figures in 1:35 scale give the machine a human scale and suggest its real size.
• The opened compartment with the radio cabinets creates a point of interest that is nowhere else on the model.
• The castings are shaped for the kit of this machine from the ICM brand.
• Suitable for a maintenance scene, not for a flight pose with a slung load.

It is better to paint the figures separately and to seat them on the model at the very end, so that the faces are not damaged. It pays to try their spacing dry, because the scene works best when one of the figures is looking into the open panel and the others follow on from each other with a look or a gesture. Neither the helicopter nor its painting belongs in the package.