TheFlyingDutchman

Really good news! I'll have at least one copy of the 340 and 2000 in 1:144. Now what to do with my Welsh kit with its vacform fuselage..?

I actually considered giving this thread a French title as well but since this is a British forum I thought naming this plane Concorde instead of Concord already was bold enough 😁 The Concorde was the result of a megalomane project between UK aircraft manufacturer BAC and Sud (later Aérospatiale) from France. Both manufacturers did have supersonic transport airliner concepts on their drawing boards, but were facing higher challenges than they could overcome on their own. In the States, Boeing started their SST program as early as 1952 and to remain relevant in the aviation industry, Europe needed to join forces. It's no wonder the two factories that eventually came up with Concorde were absorbed by Airbus eventually (which is why there's an Airbus logo on the LEGO Concorde set!) While airlines all over the world initially were interested in the Concorde, only 20 were ever built: - two prototypes: these did have a shorter tail cone, different engines, a different visor and a number of other differences from the actual production models. One was built in Toulouse, the other in Bristol. - four test aircraft: again, two were built in France and two in the UK. - fourteen production aircraft: seven for Air France, seven for British Airways. The financial success of Concorde suffered from multiple factors, such as the oil crisis, environmental issues, the 9/11 attacks and, eventually, a horrendous accident in 2000 in which a French Concorde crashed into a hotel in Gonesse near Paris. In April 2003, BA and AF retired their Concordes simultaneously. Since I built this model for a French Aviation group build on a Dutch forum, I wanted to give my Concorde a French livery. Air France only carried one livery during Concorde's entire service life, which is a plain white aircraft with the French flag 'barcode' on the tail. However, several Concordes were painted in a more classic Air France livery for a brief period of time. The first one, F-WTSA, carried this classic livery on one side and British Airways on the other. This aircraft was used for testing, such as tests in icy conditions in Finland. F-WTSB, also a pre-production test aircraft, carried the livery on both sides. These two aircraft were never actually owned by Air France and never flew in commercial service. Then there were F-WTSC and F-WTSD: these were actually delivered to Air France after some more flight tests. Upon delivery, they were re-registered as F-BTSC and F-BTSD and painted in the newer, plain white livery. I planned on building one of these, but F-WTSC is the aircraft that eventually crashed. I saw F-WTSD/BTSD on display at Le Bourget airport years ago, but I did not find a single photograph of it in the classic livery. I opted for WTSB in the end. For this model, I used the 1:144 Revell kit which has its pros and cons: + generally accurate in shape and dimensions + nice engraved surface details + very nice decal sheet + widely available and not too expensive - inaccurate cockpit windows, both the subsonic windows and supersonic visor - no detail in the wheel bays - simplistic landing gear (nice wheel hubs though) - engine inlet and exhaust systems lack detail - incorrect location for the large antenna bump on the roof: it should be slightly off-centered, the kit has it in the middle. I discovered this too late. - the wings could use a lot more inner supports for a sturdier build Starting with the cockpit windows: the subsonic windscreen, which becomes visible when the supersonic visor is lowered, look nowhere near what the kit provides. The kit gives you a single rectangular transparent pane, much like a Citroen 2CV's windscreen. Even when built with the nose and visor up, this area could use a fix since it remains somewhat visible through the supersonic visor. I used some Evergreen and scraps to reshape the windscreen. I decided not to fill them up with 'glass' since my model will have the visor up. The supersonic visor from the kit has a straight upper edge where it meets the fuselage roof. It should be angled like the subsonic windscreen. A simple fix as well. I polished the visor back to full transparency later in the build. When seeing the kit's engine nacelles, you'd think the inlet channels need a LOT of work since they are plain square tunnels. However, this is pretty accurate to the real thing. The wall between both inlets is missing though, so I added it. I also cut up a plastic straw to improve the exhausts. I did not add any turbine detail since it's just two black holes now. After painting, I tinted the supersonic visor so it has the same darkness as the side windows which I filled with white glue (as this becomes transparent once dry). For the frames, I used strips of white decal. One of Concorde's many quirks is the tail wheel. While most airliners do have some form of tail strike protection on the aft belly, using an actual retractable double wheel is unique to Concorde (as far as I know). The kit part could use some improvement though... Using a fine CMK saw blade and a file I reshaped it into something a bit more accurate. Using a scriber and a riveter I added some detail to the inside of the large main gear doors. These have a pretty weird colour as do the wheel bays: it's aluminium covered in a thick layer of flesh coloured anti-corrosive paste. I used the F-DCAL set for the livery. I coated the large striping decals with a layer of Microscale Liquid Decal Film before applying them, as I was afraid they might tear up while getting them into the right position and lining them all up. The model was painted with Revell Aqua white 04 and the engine's hot sections with a variety of Alclad metallics. And together with my other entries for the French group build, all in 1:144: Greets, Jelle

Hi Norbert, This thread on Airlinercafe might be helpful! https://airlinercafe.com/forums/topic/dc-9-comparison-airfix-vs-fly-vs-eastern-express/

In 1965, Douglas delivered their very first DC-9 to its launch customer Delta Air Lines. Two years later, the -10 series were complemented by the longer -30 series. In the meantime Douglas and McDonnell merged, and the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 did not only feature a stretched fuselage but also an upgraded wing and engines. The wings were larger and were fitted with slats: movable panels on the wings' leading edges which, together with the flaps, make for better low-speed flying characteristics. Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), the common national airline of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, wanted to buy an airliner to operate on small and remote airports throughout Scandinavia. For operating on their short runways the DC-9-30 would have been perfect, but was too large for the expected demand. However, as the DC-9-10 needed higher speeds for take-off and landing, it was not suitable either. They convinced McDonnell Douglas to develop the -20 series: the short fuselage of the original -10's, but the upgraded wings and engines of the -30. Ten of these custom built DC-9's were built, all for SAS, and when SAS sold them years later most of these were bought by US low-cost-carrier ValuJet. The last operational DC-9-20 is owned by Skydive Perris from California, with which they gave skydivers the opportunity to imitate Dan Cooper by jumping off the rear entrance from the tail! By the looks of it, it seems the aircraft has been stored for a while now, ending the career of this rare DC-9 type. For this 1:144 model, I used the plastic injection Fly Models kit, which is known to have its accuracy issues. I decided not to dive into them too deep, and only fix the problems that were bothering me. The engine pylons were one of them. They are too narrow, and some people say they are too far forward. I corrected the width but did not move them. Widening the pylons was a pretty easy job which took me about half an hour. I also improved the circular cabin outflow vent, which is typical for the DC-9. I used a leftover piece of photo etch for the valve door. On delivery, the SAS DC-9-20's did have a natural metal finish on the wings and belly. Due to corrosion issues, these areas were painted grey within several years. As I wanted to use this model as a practice project for painting natural metal, I did not chose the easy way of painting the aircraft grey. I used Inspire Chrome over various undergrounds, to give the metal surfaces some variation. Not the perfect result I hoped for, but it sure was a fun project! For the livery I used the excellent LN Decals screen printed set and the windows are by Authentic Airliners. Note the anti-gravel strip on the nose gear, another addition of mine! Greets, Jelle

Please don't hesitate to give me constructive feedback! It's only appreciated and you're right about the nose wheels. These were the only ones I had in my spares box. Stupid thing is: I do have an Elegoo Saturn 3D printer in my storage, but never used it. It would be perfect for upgrading kits like these but learning how to draw 3D reeeally puts me off..

Thank you Dave! I did not think of 8A in my search for window decals. I do not really like their laser print quality though.. very poor colour saturation. Rob of HA Models does have a website but his products are only sold through the Aviation Megastore near Schiphol Airport. http://www.hollandaircraft.nl/

In 1981, aircraft manufacturers Aérospatiale from France and Aeritalia from Italy decided on an international cooperation. Nine years earlier, another European project successfully took flight: the Airbus A300, which was the first of many successful airliners by this brand new company. This new initiative, however, wanted to aim for another market: a small regional airliner for 50 to 70 passengers. The project got the name ATR, which is an abbreviation that works in both languages. Avions de Transport Régional (F) or Aerei da Trasporto Regionale (I). In 1984, the ATR-42 performed its maiden flight at the production plant in Toulouse, southern France. The turboprop engines were produced by the Canadian branch of Pratt & Whitney, The fuselage and empennage were Italian built near Napoli and the French built the wings in Bordeaux. Four years later, an extended version was built: the ATR-72. Both the ATR-42 and -72 are still in production today. There have been several upgrades, such as the in-flight systems and the engines. The most notable difference between the modern variants (-500 and -600) and the older models -300 are the propellers, which have six blades instead of four. Air Littoral was a regional airline from Montpellier, France. They were the launch customer for the ATR-42: In the early nineties, Air Littoral went through a bold rebranding in which they came up with their colourful new livery. In 2004, however, the airline went bankrupt. For this model, I used F-RSIN's plastic injection kit. For those familiar with these kits, which are moulded by MACH2, it's what can be expected: nice and mostly accurate designs, cool rare subjects, affordable, great decals... but... terrible moulding. I added the following aftermarket materials: - BOA Agency TAROM decals for some extra detail (wing walkways, engine maintenance markings) - Authentic Airliners photorealistic cabin window decals (I used those for the Avro RJ's) - a photorealistic cockpit decal made by scale modeling buddy Martijn - Xtra Tech photo etch - resin Fokker 50 propellers by Rob Hamann (HA Models) - a lot of parts from my spares box (wheels and gear struts for a Sukhoi SSJ Superjet, for instance). The propellers needed to be modified to be accurate for an ATR. I sanded the blades to shape and curved them using hot water. Not perfect, but good enough for me! The landing gear was upgraded by a wheel well from the PE set. I scratch built some extra supports for the main gear legs and used Sukhoi SSJ wheels instead. The outer wheels received an aerodynamic hub cap from the PE set. The wing tips received their very tiny winglets which are typical for the latest -500 and -600 ATR versions. The paint job was pretty challening. I laminated the template from the kit to cut some masking tape on. Despite using the template, there were some fitting problems. Luckily, all could be fixed with a tiny brush and a steady hand! And of course, a (tiny) banana for scale: Greets, Jelle

Thank you very much!! I've got a few more, I built all of these over the course of 2022-2024. I wrote WIP threads on a Dutch forum (Modelbrouwers.nl) but I'll show them here as well.

Aurigny Air Services is the airline of Guernsey, Channel Islands. It was founded in 1968 and originally operated on just one route between Alderney en Guernsey, using Britten Norman Islanders and Trislanders. Aurigny is the French and Guernésiain* name for the island of Alderney. *PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong! I'm most intrigued by these interesting rare languages. Aurigny currently operates a small fleet of turboprops: three ATR-72's and two Dornier 228NG's. In 2014, Aurigny added their first turbofan powered airliner to their fleet: a brand new Brazilian built Embraer E195. However, last November, Aurigny announced to put their Jungle Jet up for sale, as operating a single aircraft of this type did not outweigh the costs. For this model, I used the very nice Revell 1:144 kit. My example came from one of the first batches (Air Dolomiti box) and there were quite a lot of nasty sink marks on the wings, engines and flap track fairings. On my Revell E190, which is the same kit with a shorter fuselage, these sink marks are far less prominent. I do not have a later issued E195 to compare it to, but I hope the issue was fixed on the E195 as well. For the livery, I used an outstanding 26Decals screen printed set, which seems to have been sold out for a while now. Nowadays, there's a lot of people in the airliner decal business, and a large part of them use laser printers. While I definitely think laser printers are useful, I often buy laser printed sets which are just... not it. Especially on special liveries like these, with special prints or photos like the puffin on this one, laser prints just look too bland or blurry. This 26 set was screen printed instead of lasered, ensuring very nice colour coverage and a nice, sharp and most of all cute puffin for the tail. Props to 26! Since airbrushing really is my weak point in scale modeling, the soft edge between yellow and white was quite a challenge. I think I pulled it off quite OK, though Greets, Jelle

The Airbus A318 is the shortest member of the very successful Airbus A320 series. It was also the least popular model by a long margin: only 81 were sold, while total sales of the A320 series (including the newest Neo variants) nears 10.000! The A318 differs from its slightly larger brother A319 in more than just the fuselage length: - the vertical stabilizer is taller to ensure directional stability; - the wing/body fairing is assymetrical to accomodate the front cargo door; - there's two tiny aerodynamic 'strakes' near the nose gear to ensure proper readings by the angle of attack vanes. To build an A318 in 1:144 scale, there's several options. There's the Contrails resin A318 fuselage to use on an A320 series kit of your choice, and there's the Eastern Express kit which seems to be a pain to build. I chose the most fun way: converting a Revell A319. With the A319 as starting point, 1.5 frames (cabin window segments) need to be removed forward of the wing and 3 frames aft. The wing/body fairing needs to be modified on the right hand side. The front curve is shortened to accomodate the cargo door. This photo shows the difference quite well: The tail needs to be extended by 5.5 mm. I used some roughly cut pieces of plastic for it, which I sanded to shape later. On the aft belly, a very noticable step appears after putting together the fuselage segments. I anticipated on this by adding some layers of styrene sheet inside, so I'd be able to sand the aft belly to a smooth shape without going all the way through the plastic. A modification that needs to be made for building any type other than A321's, using the Revell kit, is to remove the smallest flap track fairings. Also, a panel line on the flaps needs to be filled. The wing features the double slotted A321 flaps while all other versions have single slotted flaps. Revell knows about this, but forgot to mention the panel line. No problem if you ask me, when you don't know you won't notice. On the back of the aircraft I needed a WiFi dome, since I wanted to model an Air France aircraft. I found the correct one in the Revell A321Neo (which is a totally new kit, not just the original A321 with new engine parts!) After quite some evenings of filling, sanding, priming and painting, I finally had a nice unmarked A318 on my work bench. While I normally prefer transparent windows, especially for cockpits, I used Authentic Airliners photorealistic decals for this one instead. Also, note the very light shade of corroguard on the wings. This is a new type of corroguard paint used by Airbus on their newly produced A320's, but also for repainting older aircraft after a D-check. For the striping on the A318 specific strakes near the nose wheel, I cut up an American flag decal. Sorry, Americans! Time for the livery! Air France ordered 18 A318 aircraft, of which only three are still in active service (Jan 2024). There have been three different liveries, which I drew in profiles to show the differences: There has been quite some critique on the latest livery, as people thought the large Air France banners looked ridiculous on the stubby A318. However I think it looks very nice, and I also like the other subtle changes between the 2009 livery. I like the return of the historic Hippocampe logo, the winged seahorse dating back to AF's very early 1930's flying boat era. Also, I like the blue winglets and the plain red streak next to the titles without any gradient. Finding decals for this specific livery turned out to be a challenge. I bought a Nazca Decals sheet which I did not use. The shade of blue is too light, and the red streak has the gradient of the 2009 livery which it should not have. I decided to take matters into my own hands and designed a new sheet which was laser printed by Mika from Arctic Decals: it's the square sheet on the right! The end result: This was not my first A318. When I was 16, I built another one which was my first airliner modification. I removed the wrong fuselage sections, which made the wing end up too far forward. I also ignored the incorrect wing/body fairing, but did add the extra height to the tail! The decals were made in MS Paint which my dad laser printed for me at the school he works at. I hand painted the whole thing, including the AF striping on the tail. Fun times. Sadly, I threw out the model a long time ago. It would have been fun to display them together. Greets, Jelle

You are absolutely right, thanks for pointing that out!! Oh well, within a few years it's all absorbed by Airbus anyway 😆

The Hawker Siddeley HS.748 was originally designed by Avro in the 1950's. It was one of many aircraft that tried to take over the role of the famous Douglas DC-3. Just like many of its competitors, like the Fokker F-27 and Vickers Viscount, this aircraft was powered by the Rolls Royce Dart, which was the first commercially operated turboprop engine. The Mark1 kit in 1:144 scale is pretty nice, but not too easy to build. While the parts look very good with fine surface details, I encountered some fitting problems, especially around the engines. Also, the horizontal stabilizers do not have any tabs for a sturdy connection. This kit comes in several boxings, each with a nice selection of decals. There's plenty of aftermarket decals as well, but... none for this colourful livery. Challenge accepted! The decals were custom printed by Spotmodel from Spain. Masking off the striping on the fuselage and wings was a pain, but it turned out pretty nice if I may say so. For the Rolls Royce Dart engines I used Inspire Chrome over a gloss black base. It looks shinier than it should, but sealing the model after decals reduced the polished effect to a more realistic metal finish. For the windows, I used Authentic Airliner's photorealistic decals. I hope you like it! Greets, Jelle

Thank you!! The plastic was very rough indeed, most small parts like wheels and fan discs were unusable. The wings and fuselage however were pretty easy to clean up with some sanding and polishing! I did not have to use any special surfacing primers.

It's 1958. Twelve years earlier, Germany was divided in two parts: the communist Eastern part called the DDR and the capitalist Western BRD. Both German republics are struggling to rebuild their economies after the two devastating world wars. Building commercial aircraft has zero priority, until a group of BRD manufacturers decide on a project for a regional airliner, called the 614: This unusual design features a hinged nose for easy cargo loading and engines mounted on top of the wings. The airliner is to be built in Bremen by Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW): a merger of Weser and the well-know manufacturer Focke Wulf. At first, the engines are to be supplied by Lycoming from the USA, but to VFW's frustration, they pulled the plug very early on in the project. Luckily, the British producers of Rolls Royce and SNECMA from France are willing to join their forces to develop the needed power plant for the project. Up until now, international cooperations like this are unheard of in the European aviation industry, and it didn't stop here... After a few years of struggling to find customers for the 614, which still only exists on paper, VFW decides to merge with Dutch manufacturer Fokker in 1970. The new company goes by the name of VFW Fokker (if you ask the Germans) or Fokker VFW (if you ask the Dutch). With the help of Fokker, the design is finalized and production began. The hinged nose from the early drawings disappeared, but the unusual engine configuration remained. While the aircraft performed well on its test flights, sales were still very slow. Within the company, frustration grew bigger and bigger and the Germans accused the Dutch of deliberately slowing sales in favour of their popular Fokker F.28 Fellowship. In 1975, Danish airline Cimber became the 614's launch customer. Few aircraft were sold up until then: two to Cimber, three to Air Alsace (France) and eight to Tourraine Air Transport (TAT, also from France). Three aircraft were sold to the German Air Force. In 1977, two years later, four unfinished airframes were dissassembled and all active commercial 614's were bought back by the manufacturer. This was the cheapest way out, as now they could close their support services. Just the three military German aircraft remained in service. For this model, I used F-RSIN's 1:144 kit. Despite the name, it is a full plastic injection kit! The quality however was bad... I still had a lot of fun building it. I scratch built most of the engines, the landing gear and the cockpit. In comparison to the A-10 Thunderbolt: And a Boeing 787 engine: While I appreciate what F-RSIN is doing, this kit was not their best effort. There were quite a lot of inaccuracies, moulding quality was very poor and the decals were incomplete and had fitting problems. Luckily, their customer services was superb, and by sending me an extra decal sheet I was able to complete the cheat lines on the fuselage. Hope you like it! Greets, Jelle

Anyone else feeling the need to build a single one of those wheels of cheese and enter it in a contest?