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Bell UH-1Y Venom – 1/35 Academy
UH-1Y Venom, Yankee or Super Huey as it is known among its users is a twin-engined medium-sized helicopter, part of the great UH-1 Huey family. It is used mainly by United States Marine Corps and Czech Republic has a few on order as well. Super Huey features four bladed composite rotor blade design, cockpit with multi-functional display arrangement, improved payload, better flying characteristics and greater range & weapons arsenal than its predecessors. For those living in US and nearby Marines bases, usually the sight of a pair of USMC helicopters – one being AH-1Z Viper and the other UH-1Y Venom is a familiar sight. The duo is inseparable. They share more than the air between them and the dedicated missions they execute – the parts are with 85% commonality. It is basically as one helicopter with its weird twin flying together.
Academy, releasing their superb tooling of AH-1Z Viper 1/35 couple years ago, apparently had a plan and knew all that written above. Back in 2019, when their kit was released it was immediate hit. It was one of the most popular mask sets that DN Models ever released in 35th scale. All of that thanks to the fantastic work that Academy team did on the research and execution of their /then/ latest product. To this day, Academy AH-1Z Viper is among the top 5 helicopter kits you can get in that scale and it seems like its sister is on the way. Same goes for its smaller, 48th scale version from /now gone/ KittyHawk. Very popular subject.
According to the latest news, UH-1Y Venom in 35th scale is on its way for 2023 from the South Korean model maker. That – once released – will complete the set for the USMC Helo group and will break our banks for sure. Because, as you already know, 2023 will be mostly about new helicopter toolings. With two upcoming Apache helos in 35th scale, Ka-29 from Trumpeter, Mi-28 from Takom – all in 35th scale, and some others in 48th, this will definitely be a year to remember for rotorcraft modeling. We don’t remember such a huge wave of new helicopter toolings in the past and we hope that all of them will be pretty exciting works of art. For the UH-1Y from Academy – this is a certainty, they have already proved their point with the Viper. Finally, it is time for the UH-1.
