Hasegawa 1/72 CMV-22B Osprey

30 October: Added VRM-30 information

I am very pleased that Hasegawa elected to reissue their excellent 1/72 V-22 Osprey kit as the Navy's CMV-22B COD. For background on this aircraft and mission, see:

https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/05/carrier-onboard-delivery.html 

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2013/02/cod-redux.html

I had bought the J.G.S.D.F Transport Aviation Group kit because it had some of the same antenna details and was contemplating how to add the greatly enlarged forward end of the sponsons (a CMV-22 unique feature that added extra fuel). Now that problem is solved and as an added bonus, I don't have to come up with the necessary decals.

Scott Van Aken provided a inbox review of the kit for Modeling Madness: https://modelingmadness.com/scott/21st/previews/has/02410.htm

One build note concerns the modification of the forward end of the sponson. Hasegawa provides a resin part that fits over the kit sponson to create the bulged one. It doesn't fit particularly well (nothing that trimming, filling, reshaping, sanding, etc. can't rectify) but beware, it doesn't fit particularly well three different ways, two of which are wrong. Worse, neither the sprue that they are on nor the parts themselves are marked to denote which side they go on. In Hasagawa's defense, the assembly illustrations do depict, if you examine them and the part closely, the correct orientation of the parts and which side they go on. However, the first time I dry fitted one, having just glanced at the instructions (Cavin: "Do I look like a sissy?"), I put it on incorrectly and was about to write that Hasegawa had got it wrong.

This is a bottom view of the sponsons:

This is the correct way to orient the part (note that the one in the picture taken from above is too far forward):

This is incorrect:

This is also incorrect:

Note that the upper surface of the addition at the same height as the original sponson; the bottom of it is flat (both laterally and longitudinally, see picture above) but lower than the belly (and the kit part may not go low enough).

The shape is very complex, particularly the forward outboard corner, which appears to be slanted outward from top to bottom:

There also appears to be an intersection where the forward end of the addition ends just before the forward end of the original sponson.

Note the straight line of the top of the sponson going forward, the symmetrical fore and aft bulge downward of the addition, and what appears to be a flat area at the forward outboard corner of the addition as noted above:

One oddity of the CMV-22B deployments so far is that none of the Ospreys have been marked with a unit tail code. That is, until now, assuming that "SB" has now been assigned to VRM-50.

And another, a crop of a photo by "manyinterests2020" on Reddit, tail code DC?

No unit marking on this aircraft, but the other CMV-22 COD unit is VRM-30 and the fin decoration is similar to its badge:

Many photos, pre fin color, here: https://www.seaforces.org/usnair/VRM/VRM-30.htm