Eduard 1/48 ACH-47A Chinook Interior Detail Set First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Eduard from the Czech Republic is easily the most prolific producer of aftermarket details. Period. Their series of photo-etched detail sets have brought additional fidelity to otherwise bland subjects, and have taken even the best-produced models and kicked them up a notch or two with details that cannot be produced with injection-molded plastic.

When Eduard first introduced the acetate-printed instrument faces that go behind their photo-etched instrument panels, this raised the bar on model cockpit reality as you could almost read the time on the aircraft clock. How could they top that?

It took a number of years, but the answer is color photo-etch. Somehow Eduard has developed a process for printing color directly on their photo-etched parts such that now you not only can read the instrument faces, you can now see the color warning arcs around airspeed indicators and color reference circles around Luftwaffe flight and engine instruments.

In this release, Eduard has produced a set of photo-etched details for the Italeri 1/48 ACH-47A Chinook kit. This set provides a nice dress-up of the interior of the kit.

This set consists of four frets of photo-etched details, one of is printed in color. You can browse through the high resolution images to the right (click on one to see the large image) to see how fine the color printing has become. You can also see how this set will add some eye-catching detail to the Italeri kit.

The set starts off with a the cool color overlays for the instrument panel, fuse panels, and consoles. Look closely, you can see what time it is... The set also replaces the interesting plastic armor shielding around the crew seats with an even more interesting (and accurate) origami armor array.

Inside the main cabin, the floor, ceiling and side walls get somce nice details to enhance the kit parts. The ammo racks are also upgraded in detail as well.

Then there are the guns. This set updates the details on the 50 caliber guns, shell casing collector bags, and gun mounts.

The set is rounded out with detailing for the crew entry door and the rear ramp.

While this set will really set off the detail inside of the ACH-47A kit, this detail set is not for the beginning modeler. You will need to be able to remove the photo-etch parts from their frets (simple once you know how) and then be able to apply these details using cyano adhesives without gluing yourself to the kit parts. It isn't difficult, or else these sets wouldn't be so popular.

You should be able to find this detail set at your local hobby retailer or one of the many online hobby shops. Trust me, this is worth looking for!

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!