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BAC 1-11-500 British Airways. Mark One Models with 26Decals. 1:144 New airliner kits are few and far between, especially those from the 60's/70's/80's, so I was very pleased when Mark One announced a new range of 1-11-500s. The kit is fairly basic with no clear parts, but nicely engraved mouldings, but at around £35 retail in the UK fairly expensive. I had to get several though, and first up I wanted to do G-AVMH in the 'British' version of the Negus scheme, as I flew in this aircraft in the jump seat from Heathrow to Bordeaux and back in April 1981, with a turn in the left hand seat on the way back! 'MH was the first production 500, which added further interest, but sadly it no longer exists as it was scrapped in 2002. The kit assembles well, but I had to shim both wing roots to avoid a gap, and next time I will probably replace the wing fences with thinner plasticard. the Cockpit area used the excellent Authentic Airliners photo realistic decals, and should be considered essential for this kit due to the lack of clear parts. The engines have a curious 'S' curve where they meet the pylon, when the should be straight. I left mine alone, as modifying them would be a lot of work. Resin replacement might be better if it bothers you. I used to modify Airfix short fuselage 1-11-200s to make a 500, here is a Landor schemed one with the Mark One kit. I had a bit of a disaster during the build, nothing to do with kit I hasten to add, but the painting. I have used Halfords grey plastic primer for years, and recently bought a new can. It now comes in an orange coloured can, rather than the old silver one. On first spraying I noticed it had a very different smell, but went on very smoothly. I then gave it a coat of Halfords 'Appliance White'. Next up was to apply a thin strip of Tamiya tape to mask the lower fuselage dark blue. Upon putting the the tape down, and then lifting it to adjust, it ripped up all the paint, down to the bare plastic. I ended up with a big area around the nose that just flaked off: There were patches all over the model that just came away in small to large areas, flaking off like paper. I've never had this happen with the old formula, so won't be using this new stuff again. Anyone else had problems? I'll try Tamiya 'Surface Primer' next, but it is a blow that the Hafords stuff has been changed as I have relied on it for years. (It was not just this 1-11 that suffered, I'm also building Armory's 1;48 Dragon Rapide and had the same problem). I nearly binned the whole thing, but put it aside for a week to think about it. I then went over it with wire wool to cut it back, and found I still had a little of Halfords original White primer, and re-did it with that. Decals are from 26Decals, and were as superb as usual, with the 'British' and 'British Airways' titles as options, and all fleet names and registrations for the 1-11 500's and 200's used by BA. It has the red & blue fin flashes on the sheet, but I chose to mask and paint all the red areas to avoid having to match the painted tailplane with the red on the decal sheet. This is the finished paint job before any decals were applied: Thanks for looking, John