Heller 1/72 Alouette III "Lobo mau" (Bad Wolf)

And here is an Helicopter, a small one...

The Alouette III is a small light utilitary helicopter. It has a lot of conversions possible, from air cannon to small troops transport. Portugal acquire them in 1963, as a complement to the Alouette II. This became an icon of the Colonial War, as a commando/ sky diver transport (canibais) or equiped with a cannon pointing on the left side. We had 142, and was one of the important troop support aircraft. Usually, some were unarmed as an evacuation, or transport, followed by the ones with the cannon. The small detail about the quality of this helicopter is that it was used as a stunt aircraft, by expert pilots, doing coordinated movements on shows, and it is still flying... After over 50 years, they are still used, because it is really light, easy to fly, and a reliable machine for instruction. Went to war, got back, and still wasn't retired. It's not old. It... gathered expertiese!


This one was moded on the inside... Only the chairs are from the original kit,the gun, ammo racks and support plate were scratch built. These pics were taken before being "closed and finishd.

The rest of it is the original kit. Not very bad, only needed some details added, which I don't know if they were specific of our version or not. Like the small step to get inside.

Or the filters on the engine air entry, mandatory to keep the engines running, and to land on compacted earth landing pits.

But what made it really good, was being small. With an unpainted soldier, on the same scale, it is visible how low it is.

Or how big the cannon was... It must have been terrifying to see it pointing at you...

But most of the quality is from the model itself. With recessed panel lines, and an accurate shape, it becomes really interesting.

Even if being this small can be troublesome to handle it... The glass part can be tricky to glue... But despite that, it is a good model, of a small but effective helicopter.