Avatar: AT-99 Scorpion Gunship

I'm a bad-bad-boy

The most common criticism that I've encountered regarding the Scorpion Gunship was that a lot of people didn't see it in the movie. It's also not in the crappy video game that was released following the movie. The reason for this is that more often than not, the Scorpion Gunship is overshadowed by the more familiar troop-carrying Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson. But watch the film again and you will be able to make the distinction between the Scorpions (Look to the left) and the Samsons (it's the big fat one that looks like a Huey on steroids) - although the Samson has yet to be released as a toy.



Retailing anywhere today from PhP 1,600 to PhP 2,250 on Ebay or Greenhills, The Scorpion is a lengthy 18" long from forward sensors to its rear tail lights, 13 inches wide from rotor to rotor and 6.5" tall with both rotors fully tilted upward.

The Avatar wiki lists its loadout as having:

•  "four gimbal-mounted .50 caliber guns with 700 rounds per minute cyclic rate of fire as close range primary weapons; 
• two pairs of stub-wing pylons to carry its armament of 150 TK-411 WAFAR (Wrap-Around Fin Aerial Rocket) in ten 15-tube rocket launchers, and; 
• eight Hawkeye HELLFIRE (Helicopter Launched Fire-and-forget) are used to engage air-to-air targets in conjunction with the nose-mounted sensor suite." 

If you look at the Scorpion though, it only has two .50 caliber guns mounted on either side of the cockpit that are free to swivel a full .360 degrees. There is a shorter gun mounted next to each .50 caliber, but it is not of the same make and unlikely of the same caliber.

The eight Hellfire and ten rocket launcher tubes are attached as advertised. Two of the Hellfires (One on each side of the Scorpion) are spring-loaded missiles that can be launched with the push of a button on either side of the Scorpion.

The forward sensor pod does not move at all. The Scorpion also has four rotors, two mounted on each wing. These rotate freely.

The Scorpion fits one Avatar figure or one standard size 3 3/4" G.I. Joe or Star Wars Action figure. In this case I'm using Scarlett in her pilot outfit from the 25th Anniversary series.

Now in a previous blogpost here, I spoke of how disappointing the Avatar: AMP suit was because of the intense detail outside and then the sudden spartan detail inside. The Scorpion is no different. In some ways it is even worse and this is most evident in the cockpit.

Control panel raised

Snug as a bug

 But first the good news. The cockpit has glare shields on either side so that any bright lights shone from the ground will not affect the pilot which is an innovation that I've never seen in helicopters.

There are no control spokes visible or available for the pilot to hold on to. A joystick would have been nice. A plus side is that you can  manually raise the forward control panel - where much of the sensors and HUD features are supposed to be holographicaly portrayed - to place or remove the pilot - a unique feature in helicopter toys today.

Note the Exhaust

Note the olive drab rotors

But again the detail within the cockpit is lacking. Again I felt like looking for a sticker sheet. The over-all body of the Scorpion is also lacking detail. There are days when honestly it feels like the Scorpion is an unfinished model. Painted in primarily Olive Drab, the manufacturers added paint detail to the missiles, and rocket launchers, but left the paint details out for the 50 caliber, the rotors, and painfully, the exhaust ports.

Unlike the AMP suit, the Scorpion does not have that "weathered" look, especially in the rotor area. Considering that a ship this "fat" is used to fly over, around and through a jungle planet, the Scorpion should be riddled with scratches. It's not.

If you have the time, the equipment and the skill, the Scorpion is worth "finishing" Personally I would not mind adding shark teeth to the front of the Scorpion, scratch and burn marks, a lot of gun-metal, rust and steel paint as well as other dings and dents. It's a sense, it's worth buying just so that you can customize it. And perhaps in the long run that's how it should be viewed - not as an incomplete toy, but as a project begging for completion.

Say hello to my little friends!