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Just gone 7am on 4 February 2015 and South African Airways Flight SA257 from Johannesburg is about to touch down at the King Shaka International airport in Durban : At the controls are Captains Frik van Schalkwyk (left) and Matthew Smith (right) The hour long journey marked Frik's inaugural flight as Captain, following an extensive flying career with the airline, and here's the proud man after arrival : I'd like to thank Frik's wife Shirley (my cousin) for allowing me to post her photos of the momentous occasion - I only hope my model has done it justice. Here are the rest of my pics of Zvezda's A320 finished off with Draw decals (Set 44s-A3N-1), Skyline details (SKY14058), and Authentic Airliner windows (A320 family) ...and for those of you who are wondering about the secret of levitation, here are a couple of pics that haven't had the brass wire airbrushed out : Best Regards. mike

Airbus A320 Etihad 1:144 Revell The first of the successful narrow body range from Airbus, the A320 flew commercially for the first time in March 1998, having completed its maiden flight in February of the previous year. Designed to compete for a share of the short to medium range market which at the time, was dominated by Boeing and Douglas with their B737 and DC-9 respectively, a production run of fewer than 1000 aircraft was originally intended. However, the success of the design, and the introduction of the longer A321 and shorter A319 and A318 derivatives has seen the A320 family become the worlds fastest selling airliner. As of April 2016, Airbus has delivered nearly 7000 aircraft, with a further 974 firm orders making this the worlds best-selling, single-generation aircraft programme. The kit. The Revell kit has been around for a while now, and has been issued in many different airline liveries such as Lufthansa, Eidelweiss, Air Berlin, and Condor. This latest release offers the rather attractive Etihad livery that has been recently introduced. The box is in Revell's new 'black' style with a side view painting of an A320 climbing to altitude. The instructions have likewise been revised and are now in full colour on glossy paper. The plastic parts are the same as previously issued, and are now beginning to show traces of flash in some areas, but nothing too serious. The first of the two main sprues holds the fuselage halves and undercarriage components. The passenger cabin windows are moulded open, so you will need to decide whether to finish them with one of the liquid glazing products such as Micro Krystal Kleer, or fill them in and use decals. Glazing is provided for the cockpit windows, but without any framing on the decal sheet (apart from outlines for the two centre panes), or a 'solid' decal option. I always prefer to retain the clear option and mask it, so this is no problem. Others who like to use decals will need to take one from the spares box. The second sprue contains the flying surfaces and the CFM 56 engines, but the V2500 engine option on some previous releases have been deleted here. The trailing edge flaps on all the Revell A320's need a little modification to remove some of the smaller track fairings, and this is clearly pointed out in the instructions. Note also that the inboard flaps need the 'sub section' engraved oblong filling in. The little 'winglets' on the wingtips are somewhat undersized, but larger replacements are easily fabricated from plasticard if you desire. All my previous builds of this kit have them, and it only takes 15 minutes to make a pair. Decals. The decal sheet is probably why most modellers will want to obtain a copy of this kit. Designed by DACO it provides a wealth of stencil detail, wing walks, door outlines, engine and pylon details, as well as the Etihad livery. It is all beautifully printed in sharp register and with excellent colour matching. Being a DACO design they should fit perfectly as well, no small consideration when considering all the decals to go around the rear fuselage and tail. The fuselage colour is suggested as mix of Revell's own paint, 75% White 04, 20% Orange clear 730, and 5% Aluminium metallic 99. Several other Etihad airliners have been posted on this forum over the last few years, and other suggestions may be available with them if you search. (My own Boeing 777 was done with nail varnish applied by airbrush). Whichever method you use, it is probably wise to mix up a batch and keep it for re-coating and touch ups. Conclusion. It is nice to have this kit back in such an attractive livery. The new upgraded box and instructions are also very welcome, and much clearer to read than the old instructions. Many of us will have already built at least one of Revell's A319/320/321 kits, so know that it is a trouble free build. The real 'icing on the cake' here is the beautifully produced decal sheet, and should produce a stunning model. Recommended. [EDIT] Under construction now ! Build log here [/EDIT] Review sample courtesy of

Hi again, now with this quite unique aircraft. I liked so much the way it looked at Auckland I knew I had to build one someday. Gio Decals, which were a nightmare, and Model Master enamels. I did my best with the decals but at some stages I must confess I almost quit. Glad I managed to get through the storm though. Thanks! Ignacio

Work in progress. Standard Revell kit with Draw Decal decals. Hope to fly one of these one day! See my BA A319 in the background.

Hi all, I've been building the Revell A319/20's recently, putting a little more work into them each time. I'd really like some metal fan blades for the engines. A quick search hasn't turned up any. Does anyone know if they're out there? Chris

Airbus A320 Etihad Revell 1:144. Review Build The Airbus A320 is one of the most widely used airliners today, and is the middle sized version, with the A318 & A319 being shorter, and the A321 longer. All share the same basic wing, with the most noticeable difference being the fuselage length. Go to any civil airport in the world, and chances are you will see one of these, if not several. The Revell kit has been around for about 20 years now, and was recently released with a new decal sheet for the latest Etihad livery. Review Here To get the slightly pearlescent look, I used womens nail varnish thinned and sprayed via airbrush, which worked well. Were I to do it again, I would use a slightly lighter base coat as I feel that the final shade is a touch darker that I was aiming for. There are issues with the engines in this kit which are discussed in detail in the Work in Progress thread. 99% of purchasers of this kit will not be bothered by these issues, but for those who like to pursue accuracy, you will need to consider these points. The kit only has CFM 56 engines, only 1 of Etihads A320's has these (Reg A6-EIZ). Thanks to member 'Lesthegringo' for first pointing this out. It does not look like A6-EIZ has been painted in this scheme yet. It is still in service with Etihad, so may be repainted in the future. All the rest of Etihad's fleet use the V2500 engine. You can get these from Revells other A319 or A320 kits. As these other kits also have the CFM 56 engines, you can still build them. If building a V2500 powered machine, most of Etihads in this new livery have the new curved up 'Sharklets' on the wingtips, rather than the small endplates. Foe sure, A6-EIC has the end plates supplied in the kit, and has been painted in this livery. At the moment this is probably the best bet for finishing this model. In a further twist, all the engine decals in the kit are for V2500 engines, despite them not being in the box. Despite these minor problems I thoroughly enjoyed building this kit, the decals are beautiful and behave perfectly. You'd pay almost as much for it as an aftermarket sheet, as you would for the whole kit. The livery is really unusual and to my eye, quite attractive. So on with the photos. And finally, with the my recently completed Boeing 777 in the previous Etihad livery. It also shows that the A320 is a touch darker than I would have liked, due to the base coat i used. Both were painted with the same nail varnish as a top coat, (And despite what it says on airlinercafe, the cheat line on the triple 7 is straight . I accept that in some photos in can look like there is a wiggle in it, but that is due to compound curvature towards the front end. In real life it is fine. ) Thanks for looking, John

Airbus A320 Etihad Review Build This kit has been around for 20 years or so, and released in various different boxings & airline liveries. The latest release is in the new Etihad livery and was recently received at Britmodeller for Review It is a fairly simple kit to build, so I thought I would take it out of the box and and use it to show a few techniques that I like to use on airliners. The lovely decal sheet by DACO just calls out to be used! I like to keep the cockpit windows clear if I can. Here is how. 1. Glazing glued in. Note the schoolboy error of a gluey finger mark on it.No worries, though, the following processes will eliminate it. The A320 kit is a bit awkward to fit the glazing, the aperture needs clearing of flash, and you need to fit it in carefully or it can crack. I leave the wing off so that I can get fingers to the inside of the glazing as well, and help push it into position. Fit it off centre so that one side is on the inside of the fuselage and the other outside, so that you are sliding it from left to right in the cockpit 'slot' to get it into position. Once located run a bit of Tamiya extra thin cement around to secure it. But watch it, if you keep fiddling with it you are likely to smear gluey finger marks on it! 2. Once dried overnight, start to sand it down to blend it in better. 3. The fit isn't perfect, so it will need filler to blend it in properly. White Milliput used here, and left for 24 hours to harden. 4. Further sanding, and the Milliput is mostly off the glazing now, and filling the gaps, particularly on the centrer 'crown' . 5. Using Micromesh polishing cloths, the glazing is restored to being crystal clear. 6. Masks are now needed. It is a straightforward job to get an A320 decal sheet with a 'solid' glazing decal on, lay a sheet of clear plastic over, add some Kabuki tape on top. Cut with a new blade following the glazing pattern beneath, remove the excess tape, and you have a set of home made window masks! 7. Add them to the model.Use thin strips to adjust any edges. Here the central pillar wasn't right, so a couple of this strips corrected it. 8. The wing on this kit needs a little fettling to get it to sit flush in its opening. I find that trimming, test fit, trim, test fit etc in these areas will help to get the wing fitting snugly without the integral lower fuselage section standing proud. 9. Talking of the wing, the kit winglets are too small. 15 minutes can make a new pair from 20 thou plasicard. Above, the replacement pair. Below, the kit (too small) kit pair. 10. The wings have the extra flap tracks of the A321 version, which need to be removed. A chisel type blade is ideal for this. Shave off most, and finish off by sanding. The engraved split flap lines also need filling in. 11. While the plasicard is out, I replaced some of the lumps and bumps I had cut off the fuselage, With them in place it makes it hard to sand and smooth the fuslege. So I usually shave them off, and make new ones later like this; 12. Primed up with Halfords rattle can 'Plastic primer'. I hope this helps anyone contemplating building an airliner in general, and the Revell A320 (or A319 & A321) in particular. More to follow as I move on to painting it with nail varnish, for that Etihad pearlescent look! John

Hi everyone, One of my earliest civil aviation memories refers to the A320 with the 'non-standard' landing gear flown by Indian Airlines: http://www.crashdehabsheim.net/autre%20crash%20indian%20airlines.htm Has anyone of you build a model of this? Is there perhaps another 1/144 kit you reckon I could borrow the main landing gear from so that it makes some sense proportionally if not outright perfectly dimensional. Perhaps from a 757 or would even that be too big? I have just saw the Vintage Flyer Decals sheet(s) for the Indian Airlines 737-200 and remembered the atypical A320... Cheers, NIki

Hi there, After the Air New Zealand A320 decals, Attach Before Flight has released another two decal sheets, this time for Azerbaijan Airlines: These two, just like the ANZ sheet are printed by BOA in the Czech Republic. I have bought the A320 sheet because some of these jets had/ have a bit of extra colour, carrying titles for the 1st European Games held in Azerbaijan's capital Baku in 2015. Maybe I'll go for a double build: Azerbaijan A320 and Indian Airlines A320... Cheers, Niki

Recently completed this one - my last civvie of the year. This is the Revell 1/144 A320 kit built oob except for using Classic-Airlines decals to depict Aer Lingus retro-jet EI-DVM, which I bought at SMW. I like this kit, though I still have to build one of the newer Zvezda examples, and the laser-printed decals went on really well, my only criticisms being that there is no decal placement guide, just a colour diagram from one aspect, and there are one or two things missing, most prominently the 'Airbus A320' script above the cheatline at the rear of the fuselage. Constructive critiques welcome

Although I usually have four or five builds on the go at any one time I tend to finish them in pairs. When I posted my Court Line Tristar in RFI I mentioned that it had been finished in parallel with an overall orange Easyjet A320. I would have posted both models at the same time but after I’d applied the decals on the A320 I noticed a problem which needed some attention and a bit of careful re-finishing. Fortunately that worked out OK and here is the result. The kit is Revell (actually an old model which I stripped and re-finished) and decals are by 26. Thanks for looking. Dave ... and the two together

Hi everyone, "Attach Before Flight" from the Netherlands just brought out a new screen printed decal for Air New Zealand's A320 in 1/144th scale. http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2014/02/27/air-new-zealand-bullish-on-future-after-record-profit/5857981/ I found out about it on ARC. That's where you also get to see appropriate details on the product. Cheers, Niki L.E.: now I see it's being discussed over at Airlinercafe also...

Good day everyone out there! I bought the said kit last year and it goes along nicely with my slowly growing collection of Russian Airliners. My first was the gorgeous TU-154 but this was ruined by the utterly poor decals. I have decided that I would like a fleet of Aeroflot aircraft in the silver and blue livery, so with that regard has anyone used the kit decals with the Zvesda A-320? They do look alot better than what I have come accros before, and are certainly alot better defined. My problem is I don't want to risk a repeat of my 154 fiasco after spending ages masking and spraying. So has anyone used the kit decals and how successful were they? Much obliged Bob

Hi folks,here,s my first airliner kit.I just wanted to do something different than my normal WW2 types and there have been some superb airliner models posted recently for inspiration so I threw aside my terror of gloss paint and had a go and believe me it has been fun with a lot of advice and support from our resident BM airliner builders who are just as passionate about accuracy and getting it right as we military types.Will definitely be doing another one soon.a few lumps and bumps missing and a decal or two but hope you like.Build thread herehttp://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234967997-lets-be-civilairbus-a320/.

Kev1n and I have a (hopefully!) friendly difference of opinion of Revell's Baby Airbuses - A319/A320/A321- in this thread. To avoid hijacking RobF's thread with info not relevant to him I've started this thread to discuss the merits and problems with these kits, as I'm genuinely interested to hear (& see!) what's thought to be wrong with them. Anyone else that wants to chip in with their experiences and observations of these kits, please feel free to do so. First off, I didn't suggest these kits for RobF as he wanted a build with window decals, other kits without windows would better suit him, but I would recommend them as a first airliner for a build with open windows. The kit is readily available, relatively cheap, and there's a selection of out of the box schemes with excellent decal sheets. Accuracy wise I'd consider them pretty accurate, especially for someone who's new to airliner modelling, they certainly look right (to me at least!) when compared to photo's. The only obvious inaccuracies are the small flap track fairings that need removing from the 319 & 320 wings and a couple of flap lines to fill; plus the very undersize wing tip fences, which need to be about half as big again on all versions. Build wise I've never had any problems with them, having put them together with very little filler and only a light sand along the join lines to eliminate them. I've certainly not experienced any fit problems around the wing roots that Kev1n is alluding to. One area that can improve the look of the model, and is only really relevant if doing a clear window model, is to remove the scribed in windows of the cockpit glazing, which is too small. I do this after attaching the glazing and filling around it with superglue. The glazing can then be sanded and polished to fair it in, and the decal windows used as a template to make window masks of the correct size, which (just!) fit the clear glazing. I'll take some photo's later of one that's built ready for the paintshop to illustrate the cockpit glazing & the wing joins. Over to you Kev1n , what exactly is wrong with the wing join , and what are the "multitude of other less obvious problems"?

Looking very promising http://scalemodels.ru/news/6206-3D-rendery-zvezda-1-144-Airbus-A-320.html

New releases: DIGITAL At last, after several re-prints, OMD is pleased to announce the arrival of the ATR72-600 Air NZ black scheme in 1/144 A320R Air NZ Black scheme in 1/72, 1/144, and 1/200 The A320R was not previously available in 1/72. The others replace inkjet decals, and in the case of the 1/144 is significantly cheaper. Inkjet versions will remain available on request. More DIGITAL schemes will be released progressively over the next week or so as I find the time to process them. Watch this space. INKJET NEW: DHC-6 Twin Otter - Great Barrier Airlines FQK bird tail scheme and a flight of fancy scheme depicting the same aircraft in the GBA current scheme. 1/72 and 1/144 - can be upscaled to 1/48 if requested for the Modelcraft Canada kit. As always available through my website www.oldmodelsdecals.com John

New Releases in Digital format: Air NZ A320 covering the 2013 and Revised 2013 schemes 1/72, 144 and 200 Air NZ B737-300 current scheme 1/72, 144 and 200 NZNAC B737-200 first scheme 1/72, 144 and 200 The first scheme is essentially a new decal replacing the previous 2013 scheme decal. The others are digital releases of existing inkjet decals (still available on request) As always these decals are available through my website John www.oldmodelsdecals.com

Hello everybody. Since I have some time available I thought it would be nice to share my latest airliner with you. It's the Revell A320 (of course) in 1/144. I started it with target to paint it as Cyprus Airways, I had even printed my own decals for the livery, but resulted being painted as British Airways. Decals were given from a friend and are for the A319 BA Revell kit. Some are missing, some did not lay well, but it's not that bad.

Hi all I want to build an Air India Airbus A320-200, VT-ESI. This is one of the few A320's to have a double bogey landing gear. This is the Aircraft i intend on making. So my question is has anybody got any idea how i can modify the landing gear, i was thinking of using a set of 757 gear, any ideas? Thanks Bradley

New from Oldmodels Decals: Air NZ A320 - 20313 scheme (includes OXA the first with sharklets) 1/72, 1/144, 1/200 Air NZ Saab 340A 1/200 (and the 72 and 144 have been updated) As always available from my website John www.oldmodelsdecals.com

Many thanks to Al Wheatland for these pics.