Dragon 1/144 PLA WZ-10 Attack Helicopter

Introduction

The WZ-10 is being built primarily by Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAIC) and while not technically operational yet, there are a number of prototypes and pre-production aircraft being flown "operationally".

The Kit

The Dragon 1/144 WZ-10 consists of 41 gray, injected plastic pieces, two injected clear canopies, and a small decal sheet for three different helicopters. The decals appear in register and are nicely printed.

The entire instruction sheet is printed on the back of the box. The first assembly step has you glue the clear pieces to a fuselage half, along with the base of the rotor. There is no cockpit at all, so you may want to paint the interior of the cockpit dark, or do what I'm planning - paint the inside of the clear pieces dark. Once those three pieces are attached to one fuselage half then the fuselage halves can be glued together. Next is to glue on the main wings, horizontal tail pieces and intake covers.

In step 2, first you assemble the external stores to their pylons, then those pylons - and the other stores - to the wings. Also glued on at this time are the landing gear, and gun and "pod" to the nose.

The final step you glue on the rotors, both main and tail. However, you need to assemble the main rotor from six, separate blades attached to the hub, then that is glued to the fuselage.

You now have an assembled WZ-10 you can put your final finishing touches to.

Conclusion

Not a difficult-to-build kit, the Dragon 1/144 WZ-10 Attack Helicopter is an excellent choice to bust your AMS. Since there is no cockpit in the kit, all you have to assemble is external structure, and there isn't much to it. You can probably have a finished WZ-10 in a weekend's time.

My thanks to Dragon USA for the review kit.