1/72 Westland Wessex HC.2 seats with safety belts

The Westland Wessex HC.2 was a British multirole helicopter developed from the American Sikorsky S-58, which Westland Aircraft produced under licence and gradually modified to meet the needs of the RAF and Royal Navy. The Wessex HC.2 was a ground version designed for the Royal Air Force, used primarily for tactical troop transport, rescue operations, casualty evacuation and special forces support. Compared to the original S-58, the Wessex had a more powerful Rolls-Royce Gnome turboshaft engine (a licensed version of the General Electric T58), giving it better performance, greater reliability and longer range. The Wessex served in the RAF from the early 1960s until the late 1980s and took part in a number of operations including deployments to Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands and humanitarian missions. For modellers, the Wessex is an interesting Cold War era type, combining a classic helicopter silhouette with practical military use and a varied service history.

The 1:72 scale Aires add-on set features resin seats with seat belts that replace the standard plastic parts from the regular Westland Wessex HC.2 kits. (for example from Airfix or Italeri). The resin version brings finer surface detail to the seats, more precise shaping of the backrests and, most importantly, addsseat belts, which are either completely absent from the original kits or are only hinted at in the embossing. The seat belts can be made as resin castings or photo-etched parts (depending on the particular version of the kit), allowing for a realistic depiction of the crew equipment and possibly the soldiers being transported in the cargo hold.

Working with a resin kit requires some experience: the parts must be carefully cut from the casting blocks, cleaned of any residual material, or flattened with a fine abrasivem paper, and then glue them together with instant glue (cyanoacrylate) or two-component epoxy, as regular plastic resin glue does not work. The advantage of resin parts is their sharpness of detail and the ability to greatly improve the appearance of the interior, which is readily visible on an open or partially transparent helicopter model. The kit is suitable for modelers who want to take their Wessex model to a higher level of detail, whether for exhibition, photography or diorama. The pack does not include paint or glue.