1/48 AC-130U Part 1

The AC-130 has to be one of, if not my favourite aircraft. It may not be beautiful and it may not be fast but packs one hell of a punch.

The AC-130 gunship is a heavily armed ground attack aircraft based on the C-130 transport aircraft. The first AC-130's where used in Vietnam and are still in use today, all be it heavily upgraded with sophisticated sensors and armament. The sole user of the AC-130 is the USAF and they currently use the AC-130H Spectre and the AC-130U Spooky. AC-130's from USAF Special Operations squadrons have been deployed in virtually every conflict the U.S has been involved in, officially and unofficially, since the Vietnam war.

The model is the now becoming rare, Italeri 1/48 AC-130U which is the latest variant. The first thing that hits you when you open the box is the size of the model; its huge! The main fuselage comes in two sections and is longer than the box itself which is not small, the finished model measures 621mm long.

Having wanted this model since I was a child, I decided to lay out all the parts on my table to see what you actually get for your money - in this case it was a bargain at £24 from a trader at a show!

As you can see there are a lot of parts! Whilst Italeri give you all the external parts necessary to make an early U variant, there seems to be a lack of internal parts. There are no parts to represent the guns and the battle management stations are non-existent. The only thing you do get is the standard C-130 cargo hold and a fairly reasonable cockpit area. Unfortunately the cockpit is missing the navigators station although it does have the chairs. The main instrument console is also not correct but more of that later.

So after the initial inspection, the construction begins..........