arcadia modeler

Just received today the new 1/72 Modelsvit Tu-144 kit. And what a kit it is! If you have any doubts about the quality, it is spectacular. It comes in a full-size box, with beautiful cover artwork (a photo of the actual aircraft) and contains nearly 500 pieces. Interestingly, both the wing assembly and fuselage are complete parts, with nicely engraved panel lines. The rest is incredibly detailed: each main landing gear has over 50 parts! Decals are superb, on register and very good color. Two complete markings, plus an extra sheet for the flags and flight deck instruments. Of course, a complete flight deck too. Nose is positionable either in-flight or landing/take-off... but I'm not sure if it's moveable. And the windows are unique. Instead of individual clear parts for each window or decal windows, strips of clear plastic are provided that get attached to the fuselage and then covered by the cheatline decals. Amazing! A sheet of masking stickers is provided for painting the flight deck windows. Instructions are well illustrated and in both English and Russian. The only thing missing is a stand. But I'm going to build this one gear down, so that won't be a problem.

Now available at HobbyTerra and on ebay... Those are the reinforcing door liners found on this aircraft.

I used the parts from an Airfix kit, and then modified them to fit this version. The main undercarriage was too long so I trimmed them down and shaped it as best I could for this model. The nose gear was too short, and so I had to lengthen it to fit the deeper wheel well of this model. The wheels are also Airfix, but I had to sand them down to scale. Might still be a tad bit big though. Here is a better view of the undercarriage: And another look in the morning sun:

I've always wanted to build a Comet I and when the new 1/144 F-RSIN kit came out, I went and got one. Costs about US $40 in the states. It's a low-pressure injection molded kit made of soft plastic. That part helped in fitting all the pieces together, being very easy to sand and trim. But it also makes it difficult to use the smaller parts. The wheels and struts, IMHO, are unusable, and so I built my own. Even if you could clean them up, I doubt they would support the weight of the model. Now I have a nice undercarriage with rolling wheels, something I try to do on all my builds. I selected the BOAC model, and of course chose G-ALYP for the registration. The decals are excellent. I also have the F-RSIN conversion kit for the Airfix Comet IV, and someday I'll put that together and see how they compare. Here is the finished model: Any and all comments welcome!

I've always wanted to build a Comet I and when the F-RSIN kit came out, I got one. Cost about US $40 in the states. It's a low-pressure injection molded kit made of very soft plastic. That part helped in fitting all the pieces together, being very easy to sand and trim. But it makes it difficult to use the smaller parts. The wheels and landing gear are, IMHO, unusable, and so I built my own. Even if you could clean them up, I doubt they could support the weight of the model. Now I have a nice undercarriage with rolling wheels, something I try to do on all my builds. I selected the BOAC model, and of course, choose G-ALYP for the registration. The decals are excellent. I also have the F-RSIN conversion kit for the Airfix Comet IV and someday I'll put that together and see how they compare. Here is the finished model:

Very well done! A super build. One question... what did you use for the porthole windows? Looks like they didn't appear until the last set of pictures.