skippiebg

The Viscount is F-RSIN's best-shaped kit and the nose is brilliant.

Right.. That leaves you with the Revell kit. The alternative (for a fan-engined 707-123_B_) is stretching a Roden 720B. If you want a non-fan 707-123, you have a very painful surgical job (and one with a very uncertain outcome) involving a non-fan Roden 720 and a Minicraft K/C-135 wing. Vintage Flyer Decals do several rather jolly AA schemes, with the nice touch that they are available in either 1/144 scale or Revell's fit-the-box 1/139 scale.

Authentic Airliners makes a 707-120 which is mouth-watering and should be at euro 65. The Revell kit is slightly overscale and suffers from huge rivets, but is otherwise quite decent, was released with fan and non-fan engines in its time, and is reasonably widely available secondhand, sometimes at reasonable prices.

Slight surgery is needed to the wings -- the PW-powered 320 and RR-powered 420 ("the Intercontinentals") had slightly different inboard flaps and a slightly shorter span. There were also slightly fewer leading edge Krueger flaps, but that simply means filling-in some of the inscribed detail. Absolute maniacs with nothing better to do will whittle away some of the aft end of the wing/body fairing, which is infinitesimally (and I mean truly infinitesimally!) slimmer on the 707 Intercontinental. More on the wing here.

Do let us know how you get on, Steve! (Ah, for the vicarious pleasure of watching others model when I haven't got the time! Am getting popcorn... )

I'll second Romeo Alpha Yankee on the nose being okay and the fairing needing to be fashioned from laminations of sheet plastic, rather than from filler which would crumble. Apart from that, and filling-in the engine grooves (Airfix represented them as if they are in "reverse thrust" mode) the fin and tailplane trailing edges need to be thinned down in the time-honoured classical manner, and you have a more than reasonable early 747. Revell's is better overall, but has other issues of its own.

Definitely the correct colour for BOAC 707s until 1964, yellow stripes included. "BOAC Rolls-Royce 707" was the way the Boeing 707 was referred-to by BOAC (well, at least until the Pratt & Whitney-powered 320Bs and Cs entered service), most likely to stress the patriotic aspect. I'd say you have a trevel agent display model there. The decals might have been preserved because it spent its life in a box or in a dark space, away from the sun.

Not sure the Minicraft engines are the best bet. They look too slim and anaemic. Revell for me, personally. But each to his own :)))

Sorry... Silly me!!! The Revell JT3Ds should work fine, in theory. I don't know ho easy they are to adapt to the Roden wing, but in terms of shape they ought to be jut right. I'd say, go for it!

The engines are overscale. Roden somehow ended up with very nice JT4s... Sadly, there is no way to modify them. I am not sure which Revell engines you are thinking of. I have seen Revell 707 engines that pretend to be JT3s but that originally posed as Conways. In fact they are are neither, being more of a 1960s misunderstanding. The way to go would be to use a set of Welsh Models or Authentic Airliners JT3s. Each is correct and to scale.

Here is a brilliant rundown of the Minicraft kit's pros (few) and cons (many). I revisited my ages-old build and discovered why it put me off -- the huge and broad engraved lines. Anyhow, trust of help...

Well, don't remember it, but can't have been me! Not that touchy

Hi -- basically, the trailing edges are too thick, and the nose is off in shape. The famous "hump" atop the fuselage is easily doable with nothing more than a modicum of sanding in the right spot. The flightdeck windows are best "de-emphasised" with a bit of filler and redone with decals as they are more redolent of a late 1940s futuristic exercise entitled something like "a glimpse into the shape of the giant flying-boats that shall, to-morrow, fly many dozens of passengers each across the Empire". On the plus side, the engines (all three makes are represented in diverse packings) are quite good and workable (though early kits had wrong fan spin directions...). This is just my opinion, and not backed by any experience as my one and only attempted MC 777 has sat on what is often and increasingly irritatingly called the Shelf of Doom. I recall thinking at the time (2002-ish, I should think) the kit was about par for the course. (You know -- a kit gets released, favourable and balanced reviews come out, and then concerted hate mails that get repeated and embroidered upon go on to destroy it so thoroughly that the early reviews look like they were written under the influence of bribes or drugs.) The reason for its extended shelf-of-doomitude has not been any growing revulsion at its quality or anything like that, but ever more frequent lunges back to my beloved 1950s, 1960s, and early/mid 1970s. Of course, since Zvezda released their 777, the Minicraft one has altogether lost what little shine it had.

Err-r... it would be graceless to carp, but... the AC intakes below the centre section were different on A300B2s/B4s. Rather a lot more straighter and more angular. Like planks of wood with NACA intakes, really... They became rounded on the A300-600 and A310. Other than that, ta-s-ty! Looking forward to seeing it built!

Brilliant! I suppose the filliet that Turbofan is asking about is the mottled greenish/grey item in the video..?