AIRFIX 1:72 KAMOV KA-25 HORMONE

Reviewer: Michael Bennett  (Benno@jetmial.ac.uk)

The Kamov Ka-25 Hormone is a Soviet chopper that is geared to a number of utility roles from assault ships.  It is distinctive by its box-shape body, and especially the two main rotor blades which go in opposite directions to each other, thereby counteracting torque and dispensing with the need to have a tail rotor.  The Hormone has been successfully employed roles such as SAR, Electronic Intelligence and Anti-ship/sub warfare tasks.

The Airfix kit is a rather old engineering feat and came out onto the market in the late 70's or early 80's.  I picked this one up from a home sale and was keen to get to work on it quickly.  Typical engineering of its time with etched control surfaces, excessive lines but not bad in detail.  I believe also that this kit was reboxed by MPC in the early 80's, as they did with a number of Airfix kits.  The injected plastic is grey in colour and a bit soft but not too bad to work with.  The instruction sheet, fold-out, is a bit aged but covers the assembly quite well.

The internal detail is quite sparse and as was the typical scenario of the day you get a very basic cockpit, with seats, floor, control sticks and decal-instrument panel.  Only one stick is provided for the pilots, whereas in helicopters there are two for each.  Not an uncommon occurrance, unfortunately.

The fuselage halves went together suprisingly well, and the nose radome was attached to the front.  In this I also shoved some ball bearings for noseweight and to prevent tailsitting.  There is every indication that without this, the chopper would fall back on its ar...er..bottom.  The resulting gaps needed filling and the undersided needed to be smoothed with some diligent sanding.

The rotor blades are quite fiddly, which isn't surprising given there are two sets, and a fair bit of attention needs to be given to get this process correct.  Aligning the blades on their pins proved to be rather difficult but once done, it was worth the effort and the resulting structure is reasonably strong.  To encase it properly, you need to do part assembly before attaching the fuselage halves, so that you can trap the shaft.

The windscreens proved to be a little difficult to fit and a slight trim was necessary to get it to sit snugly.  The undercarriage was also another part that needed plenty of care because it was small and fiddly, and I used a blobbed of super glue in the right places to strengthen the bond, and it worked out very well. Finally the rear tailplane structure went together really easily and just needed to be left to dry to make sure it sat correctly.

The kit allows for a couple of examples from the same version to be built, both in overall medium sea grey with red stars and the Red Fleet Flag.  My decals had yellowed, so I purchased an aftermarket Russian Navy sheet from Propagteam and used these on the model.  They were a bit thin but did the job well.

Overall not a bad kit.  It measures up quite well and there's no mistaking what aircraft it is supposed to be, but there is something about the nose profile that just doesn't look right.  It goes together quite well, with only the real messy bits highlighted above.  I still think that it is not beyond the scopes of a less experienced modeller who could use a kit like this to hone some skills.  Recommended.

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