FINISHED. Authentic Airliners DC-9-32 KLM 1:144

[Malair]

I've wanted to make a DC-9 for a while now, but never came around to it. Now's finally the time! The DC-9 was the last civil aircraft that was designed exclussively by Douglas. I'm sure many civil aircraft enthousiast knows about the venerable DC-9, so no need to go into details here

 

KLM had a total of 25 DC-9 aircrafts (both the -15 and the -30) and they served the airline from 1966 to 1989. From an old Dutch newspaper article:

 

"KLM has chosen the twin engined DC-9 as its successor to the six Vickers Viscounts, that have been in use since the sixties. There wasn't much choice. Apart from the DC-9 only the British BAC 1-11 was a possibility. However, since the positive experienceKLM has had with the DC-8, the DC-9 was an obvious choice"

 

That wasn't entirly true though, as KLM did think about the French Caravelle for a while. However, when the negotiations with Air Franch in Air Union came to naught, a possible order for Caravelle's fell through. On hindsight not a bad thing, as the DC-9 was a better choice in this case.

 

Still, she would have looked nice in a KLM livery...

 

On a final side-note, KLM did fly the BAC 1-11, which was leased while waiting for their DC-9. I'm definitely going to build the BAC1-11 from AA in KLM colours one day.

 

Anyway, I have flown on the DC-9-30 at least once! I can't remember exactly when, but it should have been somewhere by the end of the eighties, begin nineties. I can't remember if I have ever flown in a KLM DC-9, but I did fly one from Iberia of which I have a picture. The man with the red shirt in front is my father. The little running guy with a cuddling cloth in is hand is me

 

I decided to build the DC-9-30 from Authentic Airliners. Many a great build has been made with Airfix and the kit is actually reasonably accurate, but this time I choose ease of building over price. With the airfix kit you have to do a lot more filling and sanding and I wanted to do something easy for now (my next build is probably going to be the Aeroflot AN-10, which will require a lot more work I presume).

 

Let's get this show on the road!

 

This is going to be it:

 

The parts (all crisp and greatly moulded as per usual with AA):

 

The decals are from F-Decal

 

The cockpit and window decals are from Authentic Airliner decals.

 

Resin models should be thoroughly washed. If not, you can have severe problems with painting later on (as I have learned from experience).

 

Next, the parts can be removed from the casting leftovers. I use a small saw for this like on the picture, or a Dremel. Make sure to use respiratory protection and proper ventilation. Resin particles can be nasty for your lungs.

 

The rudder should be attached seperatly. Nice one from AA, this makes for a more realistic effect!

 

 

The stabilizers can be glued too. See what I mean when I say AA builds quickly?

 

The engines will take up most of the time, due to the necessary filling, sanding and airbrushing the different shades of metal.

 

Glued the behind of the fuselage.

 

The engines have been glued as well and have been filled, just as the stern of the fuselage.

 

The flap hinge fairings have been attached, Those look a lot nicer compared to the Airfix kit.

 

The fit has been excellent so far. The small crannies that are left will be filled with Mr. Dissolved putty.

 

 

The engines have been sanded, but still some slits are left. It will require a second round of filling and sanding.

 

The stern has been sanded down as well.

 

The fuselage, tail and engines are now ok, so they can be primed. I have used Mr. Resin for a primer. However, the wings can no longer be primed with Mr. Resin, as it is no longer available on the market. Hopefully the normal primer will work as well.

 

 

The line that was left over from casting on the fuselage was still visible, so I had to sand that down a bit more.

 

Still some small holes where left on the engines. I filled them with car filler and sanded it down with a fine grit for a more smooth whole.

 

The airbrushing can already commence. I masked the lower half of the fuselage and added a normal white primer.

 

 

The top of the fuselage has been airbushed! Is used Revell 50 with a bit of white to get the 80's KLM blue. The engines have been primed with Alclad II Gloss black primer (as a base for the metal)

 

I'm not sure which metal colour to use for most of the engines. It's a dull metal colour, so I'm guessing I'm going to use either aluminium or steel, but I'm open for suggestions.

 

To be continued!

Edited September 10, 2017 by Malair

[Turbofan]

Hi Martin,

This is coming along nicely! You're a little further ahead than me, I have primed the fuselage but am not happy with the finish so will be removing it and starting again.

It's a pity KLM didn't buy the Caravelle as it looks good in those colours. Not so sure it would have looked as good in the later blue top/white tail livery though.

You look pretty eager to get on board that IB DC9! Obviously bitten by the aviation bug at an early age!

Looking forward to the next update, won't be long before we see this in RFI.

Cheers,

Ian

[Eric Mc]

Great progress. Authentic Airliners look great but they aren't cheap. I built the Airfix DC-9 back in the 70s and finished it in the KLM colours that came with the kit.

[Malair]

On 9-8-2017 at 00:01, Turbofan said:

This is coming along nicely! You're a little further ahead than me, I have primed the fuselage but am not happy with the finish so will be removing it and starting again.

Thanks Ian. Tough luck with the priming! I always hate it when that happens. Worse is when a paint job goes wrong. You then have to remove the primer and the paint. I've had this experience a couple of times a few years ago. Below my pain when building the 707 in 2015:

 

 

But with Carson's piant killer and 2 hours further, the problem was resolved and in the end I got a 707 I was happy with.

 

 

On 9-8-2017 at 00:01, Turbofan said:

You look pretty eager to get on board that IB DC9! Obviously bitten by the aviation bug at an early age!

That's right! My parents have taken me on many a flight when I was young and I've been interested in civil aviation (and modeling) pretty much my whole life

Good luck with you DC-9! I'm very much looking forward to your end results as well!

 

On 9-8-2017 at 09:01, Eric Mc said:

Great progress. Authentic Airliners look great but they aren't cheap. I built the Airfix DC-9 back in the 70s and finished it in the KLM colours that came with the kit.

Thanks Eric Mc! They aren't cheap indeed, but you get what you pay for. In the case of the 707 or 727 I think the inaccuracies if the injection moulded kits available are so hard to fix that AA in basically your only option if you want to build an accurate kit. Or in the case of the Fokker 28, your only option as there are no other kits available. That being said, the Airfix DC-9 is actually not a bad kit. Out of interest, if you build one in the 70s, does the build model still look nice, or did it yellow over time? 

[Malair]

A little update.

 

The tail is attached. Thet fit wasn't great though. The rudder was a little too big, but that's of course easliy corrected.

 

I airbrushed the tail with Tamiya gloss wihte. The airbrush cleaning kit makes a surprisingly good standard for drying

 

This is how she looks without the masking tape.

 

Now it's time to attach the wings and prime the lower half of the fuselage. But first the top half has to be masked.

 

I also gave the wheels a good weathering meanwhile.

 

The wings are attached. The fit was truly excellent!

 

 

And this is the status at the moment with the lower half primed and drying.

 

To be continued!

[Malair]

The engines have been airbrushed. I chose Alclad II airframe aluminium. That gave the nice dull metal I was looking for.

 

Airbrushed the underside of the fuselage.

 

And here is the result without the masking tape! I also gave the engines a few more metal colours.

 

 

Painted the leading edges....

 

...and made a start with weathering.

 

And then it's decaling time! I decided to add the cheatline first, before attaching the engines (the fit is excellent anyway). The engines have to be weathered more though, as in practice they could get rather dirty. The fit of the cheatline wasn't super, but I expected this as the decals are designed for the (incorrectly shaped) Airfix kit. A bit of fiddling corrected most of the issues.

 

To be continued (next time the end pictures I guess)

[Alex1978]

Very nice work so far.

AA's kits are amazing,I have built already a DC-10 and MD-11.

Just recently I finished an Airfix DC-9-30 in exactly the same scheme.It suits the DC-9 perfectly

[Turbofan]

Good progress Martijn, certainly getting on better than mine!

I'm glad you managed to fit the decals, I think I'm still going to paint my cheatlines though as I want to use AA window decals. Are you using an AA windscreen?

Good to see plenty of weathering already, those KLM DC-9s were real workhorses and definitely got grubby!

Looking forward to seeing this in RFI in the very near future.

Cheers,

Ian

[Eric Mc]

Looking good.

 

Regarding what my Airfix DC-9 looks like now, I wouldn't know as it long since disappeared into the great modelling vault in the sky. I think I built it in 1975 and I have moved house and country a number of times over the past 40 plus years - so all of my early models didn't really survive those moves.

[Malair]

Thanks everyone!

14 hours ago, Alex1978 said:

Very nice work so far.

AA's kits are amazing,I have built already a DC-10 and MD-11.

Just recently I finished an Airfix DC-9-30 in exactly the same scheme.It suits the DC-9 perfectly

I love the AA. Expensive, but you'll get your money's worth. I have build several so far, including the MD-11 in KLM colours, but I have yet to build the DC-10 (it's in the stash though)

 

11 hours ago, Turbofan said:

Good progress Martijn, certainly getting on better than mine!

I'm glad you managed to fit the decals, I think I'm still going to paint my cheatlines though as I want to use AA window decals. Are you using an AA windscreen?

Good to see plenty of weathering already, those KLM DC-9s were real workhorses and definitely got grubby!

Looking forward to seeing this in RFI in the very near future.

Cheers,

Ian

 

Painted the cheatlines are always the best, but time consuming. That's why I often use decals.

I am using the AA windscreen, as well as the windows. The AA windows can easily be applied over the windows of the decal sheet (nearly the same size and spacing of the AA ones).

 

1 hour ago, Eric Mc said:

Looking good.

 

Regarding what my Airfix DC-9 looks like now, I wouldn't know as it long since disappeared into the great modelling vault in the sky. I think I built it in 1975 and I have moved house and country a number of times over the past 40 plus years - so all of my early models didn't really survive those moves.

I still have all my old models. They somehow survived my moving about. I've put them on the attic of my office building in a special "wall of shame". I sometimes take a glance at them to see how far I've come in the last couple of years.

[FortyEighter]

This is looking really good Martijn

[Skodadriver]

Lovely work Martijn.  I'm really looking forward to the finished model.

 

I'm on holiday just now and haven't touched a model for nearly a fortnight. Seeing how this beauty is progressing is feeding my withdrawal symptoms!

 

Dave G

[phil1]

wow, this is looking special

[Malair]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

 

Well, she's finished, so without further ado:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way, is it ok to post the finished pictures here, or should it go to the RFI part of the forum?

 

The DC-9 by Authentic airliners is a joy to build (as are all the other kits by AA) and a much better representation of the real thing. Now that the model is finished I can make a comparison to the Airfix equivalent. Some things that I’ve noticed are that the engines of Airfix are too short and too thick, the fuselage is too short, the vertical stabilizer has the incorrect shape and the wing sweep isn’t a 100% correct. Whether or not that is worth a more expensive resin kit is up to you.

 

I’m happy with the way the colour of engines turned out. I’ve experimented a bit with the metal colours as I want to get more experience with them. After all, aircraft such as the DC-8 or DC-10 in KLM colours had their bellies entirely metal coloured in more or less the same colour as the DC-9 engines, so I can use all the practice I can get before I even start working on those!

Next up is the 757 from PAS-models in the colours of Air Holland. It will be interesting to see how this kit compares to the Authentic Airliners one. I’m not sure I’ll be making another WIP or just do the RFI as I’m quite busy at the moment with my business and my little boy, but we’ll see.

 

Hope you enjoyed, thanks for watching and see you next time!

 

Regards,

Martijn

[stringbag]

Very nice indeed Martijn. A lovely finish for sure

Chris.

[Skodadriver]

That's absolutely gorgeous Martijn, even better than I'd expected.  

 

Are you going to put it in RFI as well?  Such a fine model deserves to be seen as widely as possible.

[Malair]

Thanks for the compliments guys!

 

5 minutes ago, Skodadriver said:

Are you going to put it in RFI as well?  Such a fine model deserves to be seen as widely as possible.

If that's allowed, sure!

[Skodadriver]

It's quite common to do a WIP then put the finished model in RFI and I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be allowed.  When we had the Group Build last year (which was just a collection of parallel WIPs) most of us, including me, posted our finished models in RFI to give them a wider audience, so to speak.