"More Mohawk Mania"
Accessories for Roden OV-1B/C

Cobra Company, 1/48 scale

HyperScale is proudly supported by Squadron.com

Reviewed by "Bondo" Phil Brandt

As this curmudgeon was saying just a month or so ago in the annals of HS, we modelers who take the road less traveled, who routinely deal in fit clearances more than, say, .020", who don’t blanch at sanding, who don’t mind the smell of lacquer putty in the morning owe a lot to the efforts of relatively small, sometimes one-man, aftermarket operations such as Chris Miller’s Cobra Company. This is again the case with two more resin detail sets to upgrade the latest release in Roden’s excellent Mohawk series, the B/C version. That’s right, ze one weeth ze beeg (18' long) SLAR pod mounted under the right side.

Having so far released the A and B/C Mohawks, Roden is obviously allowing sales of the B/C to peak and then soften before they release the definitive D version, which closely resembles the B/C.

Cockpit

The larger of these latest two offerings is the cockpit set which, in addition to some thirty components described in the earlier review for the A set, now adds the correct B/C instrument panel which only spans half of the cockpit width. The right half is now occupied by the SLAR scope and associated controls and sub-panels. And, the nosewheel bay is now a separate component rather than integrated with the cockpit floor as in the A set.

Four ejection seats (two with cast-in belts and harnesses; two without, allowing for the easy addition of Eduard PE belts) are included as before, as are insulated side panels with map boxes, etc., rudder pedals, control column, gunsight and numerous other small boxes and
parts.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

SLAR Pod

The long SLAR pod is one piece, with the early, more pointed, ends (the ends on many Ds are blunter). Small step platforms are integrated with the pod, and the two faired pod mounts are separate.

An anti-skid step area on top of the pod has also been molded in.

Molding and Detail Execution

As with the earlier sets, the molding is of high quality with very little, if any, flash or bubbles. As before, details are very fine and sharp. When all the cockpit parts are added to the Roden forward fuselage, it’s a significant and welcome improvement in “busy-ness”, and such complexity is important to this bug-eyed airframe with a large glazing area.

The Cobra seats are nicely complex, and the cast-in belt versions even have the belts posed differently.

Instructions

I’ve always been pleased with Cobra’s detailed pictorial instructions, and the those enclosed in the new cockpit set are no different: perspective line drawings of assembly blow-ups and five B&W cockpit detail pix. The SLAR pod instructions do not include pix because the component is expected to be an exact swapout for the Roden B/C parts.

Cobra done good, again! Oh, and don’t forget the separately available maingear wells and exhaust tubes. Put ‘em all together and you, too, can “kick sand” in the faces of the Luftwaffe hordes at IPMS shows!

Recommended.
 

"Bondo" Phil Brandt IPMS 14091

Review and Images Copyright © 2005 by Phil Brandt
Page Created 19 October, 2005
Last updated 18 October, 2005

Back to HyperScale Main Page

Back to Reviews Page