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A journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step... I began modelling airliners back in 2006, and ever since have wanted to build one of my favorite designs: the MD-11. I have seen the Welsh kit, but didn't want to deal with vacuform. I have seen the authentic airliners kit, but didn't want to deal with resin. I have seen the DC-10 conversions, but didn't want to deal with essentially scratch-building the whole model. Today, though, today I received this: You're probably familiar with the kit by now... This is the Eastern Express/MikroMir MD-11 in the "American Airlines" packaging. Feel free to ignore the Atlantis sticker covering the original MikroMir logo. This packaging includes decals and masks for the Varig MD-11 shown on the box art, as well as a TAM and a World Cargo option. I am planning to build the Varig MD-11, though that will depend heavily on the quality of the kit decals. Anyway, on to the build... The fuselage comes in five main pieces with panel lines and no windows: perfect for my style of airliner modelling! The parts had a lot of flash and excess plastic along the edges, and the main components were lacking in locating pins. While locating pins almost always fail to properly align fuselage halves, they do help to at least start the process and hold various pieces in place. On the other hand, I have done enough type conversions before to be comfortable with cutting and re-gluing fuselage components. My preferred method involves applying strips of styrene behind the joint for reinforcement and alignment, and it seemed that same process would work well on this build. A feature on this build is the availability of a flight deck... I love flight decks! They always provide a convenient place to mount my weights: At issue next was the nose wheel bay. The kit instructions call for installing the nose wheel strut prior to closing the fuselage... No, thank you. Instead I decided, after studying the drawings, that I MIGHT be able to get away with simply cutting a notch in the wheel bay and installing the struts later. I don't actually know if this is going to work, but it has worked before and I see no reason why it shouldn't work here. I will let you know once I try it, of course. Also worth noting is that the locating holes for the horizontal stabilizers are covered over... I opened these up prior to closing the fuselage. From here, then, a final dry-fit before taking the plunge and closing the fuselage... One can see that the roof already has very good alignment, so I did not expect any particular difficulties. Having said that, though, I was not surprised to see this misalignment pop up where four of the fuselage parts meet... There are a number of curves on the fuselage that exert force on this particular area of the model, so extra care will be required to get the pieces properly aligned. In my case, I applied solvent glue and then pushed one side, pulled the other side, and squeezed both sides. The resulting joint was, I think, good enough. The bottom of that same area, though, is a tragedy! On the other hand, this area of the fuselage tends to present a problem, for me at least, on most of the airliners I build. The solution is a simple matter of applying elbow grease and reshaping these curves... No worries. Also worth noting is that the cockpit glass is every-so-slightly smaller than the opening in the fuselage, and so pressing the clear plastic down into the slot results in a step along the roof line. Instead, I glued the cockpit part in at its front, aligning it with the nose, and then glued the part at its roof line. This process, I believe, properly aligns the piece along the roof but leaves a small gap at its base. Again, no worries. Filling the base will be significantly easier than reshaping the roof line. And this is where she sits so far! I've heard a lot of moaning and groaning about the quality of this kit, but I am excited to hit it with full-steam. None of the issues I have encountered to this point are particularly unreasonable, in my opinion, and none of the issues that I see coming have concerned me yet. What problems have I not foreseen, though? I guess we'll find out! In the meantime, I have, for the first time in 11 years, an MD-11 fuselage sitting on my table... and we're just getting to the good part! I will work next on the wings and stabilizers, and then will progress to the engines... Until then, comments are welcomed... Thanks for looking!

Friends, just wanted to show some pictures of my latest build. This is the Zvezda 737-800, which is an AMAZING kit, with the old Revell kit decals. I performed this build, first, to familiarize myself with the Zvezda kit and, second, to practice some new painting and gloss finishing techniques. The decals didn't fit quite properly, but the build was going so well, in my humble opinion, that I just had to finish it! As always, thanks for letting me share! D-AHFM, TUIfly Haribo GoldbAIR:

Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 200, with 26 Decals 'Gulf Air' . 1:144 Eastern Express, sold by 26 Models with their decals. The Lockheed Tristar was one of the first generation of widebody airliners, designed in the 1960's and entering service in the 1972, few, if any are still flying today. Like the DC-10 it featured a centre engine mounted in the tail. With the development of more powerful and reliable engines, this configuration is no longer seen on aircraft of similar size. The Gulf Air scheme from the Tristar era is one of the most attractive around, so when I saw that 26 Models were offering their own boxing of the Eastern Express kit along with a set of their own decals, I just had to have one. The price was very good too, so I hope Ray reissues it sometime soon. The kit itself is pretty good. Other forums have suggested it is based on the long unavailable Otaki kit, but not having an Otaki for comparison, I couldn't say. The fuselage halves are in 2 parts, but the fit of the tail section to the main body is exceptional if not perfect. It really is hard to tell that the tail/centre engine is joined on. The rest of the kit fits pretty well too, unlike in comments made on this forum about the Eastern Express MD-11. I have not started my MD-11, but guys building the it have had fit issues, so it is worth pointing out here that the Tristar is a good 'un. There are a couple of improvements that can be made, pointed out at the end of this post. Two versions of the livery are offered on the 26 sheet, with minor variations in the tiles/font used for the 'Gulf Air' and 'Golden Falcon' scripts. Some aircraft had overall white fuselages (on delivery I think) and later they appeared with a bare metal strip along the underside. I did mine as A40-TZ as there is a good photo of it on airliners.net showing the full white fuselage. 'With something else', an A330-200, showing how big twin engined airliners have got! A couple of things are worth doing. The centre engine is a bit 'see through' so I stuck a simple roll of 5 thou plasticard in to give the illusion of an intake. Fellow member Chris 'Stringbag' has artfull bent some copper plumbing pipe for his. I have a copy that I'll use on my next Tristar. The engine pylons are a bit strange where they should meet the hot section. There is a gap that I filled with plastic strip & milliput to blend them in. Thanks for looking, John

BAC 111-207 British Eagle 1:144 Airfix with Classic-airlines.com decals I picked up this vintage Airfix BAC 111 at this years Cosford show for £10, in the British Caledonian boxing. Finding this decal sheet at www.classic-airlines.com I just had to have it, and started building immediately. The kit isn't bad but requires a few basic corrections as it was based on the early prototype, and the first production examples that went into service with British United. The nose is too blunt, so was built up with Milliput and given a more pointed shape. The wing fences aligned with the outer flap track need removing, and new ones installed further inboard. The leading edge landing lights need to be filled in, I rescribed the wings as well. An APU exhaust needs to be installed at the base of the rudder. Refined the shape of the rear cowlings, blending in the 'ring' exhaust to a smoother shape. Careful masking was needed to get a thin white line under the 'cheat line' and the decals needed care in application, but worked beautifully. I really enjoy building these vintage Airfix airliners, especially when I can put them into long gone liveries that I remember from my childhood. Ok, they are not to the standard of the stunning Authentic Airliners resin kits, but are still very enjoyable! And finally... with the F-Rsin Bristol Britannia; Thanks for looking, John

McDonnell Douglas MD-11 1:144 MikroMir After the first generation wide body airliners were established into service, thoughts naturally turned to the future. Of the major companies, Boeing continued to develop the 747 whilst also working on 767 and 777 next generation wide bodies, as did Airbus with the A330 & A340 . Lockheed were unable to do much more than offer minor variations to their Tristar, and Douglas were similarly short of cash, meaning that they too were not able to look at creating a new aircraft. There were several proposals from the 1970’s onwards to develop the DC-10 with fuselage stretches and reductions, but for one reason or another they came to nothing. It was not until 1986 that the MD-11 was finalised and offered for sale. The design featured a 5.6 metre fuselage stretch, redesigned wing & tail, a glass cockpit, and the use of composites in construction, and new fuel efficient engines. The MD-11 program suffered from various delays, and the first flight was seven months late, in January 1990. Performance was also below forecast, with the aircraft unable to meet its range/payload figures. December 1990 saw Finnair introduce the MD-11 into service just days before Christmas 1990. Several airlines were disappointed with their MD-11’s, American Airlines keeping their fleet barely 5 years and Singapore cancelling their entire order. Production lasted just seven years for the passenger version, with the final cargo MD-11’s being built in 2000, giving a total build of 200 MD-11’s of all versions. Of those still flying, all are cargo versions, with FedEx and UPS having the largest fleets. The Kit <EDIT> The completed model can now be seen in Ready for Inspection </EDIT> Developed in partnership with Eastern Express, the MD-11 is an all new tooling of this much wanted subject. Upon opening the box it is quickly apparent that it shares the same design approach as the Eastern Express L1011 Tristar released last year. The plastic is very similar, with the same delicately engraved panel lines and detailing, and most obviously a separate rear fuselage and fin unit. The two fuselage halves are quite big and will need their mating surfaces cleaned up and smoothed off with a sanding block. There are some sprue attachment and a little bit of flash, just as there is on the Tristar kit, and having built a Tristar I can say that it is a simple and quick job. Construction starts with the cockpit, which is very unusual for a 1:144 airliner, but most welcome if like me you sometimes find yourself scratch building to fill the empty space. With those large cockpit windows I expect that this detail should be visible on the completed model. With 10 parts to make up the nosewheel bay and leg there is also more detail than usual. We have come a long way since the shallow recesses provided as wheel bays on the likes of Airfix airliners. With the bay and cockpit completed, they can be inserted into one fuselage half, and fuselage closed up. The instructions show the two main fuselage halves being joined, then the two rear fuselage sections being joined to each other, before bringing the two units together. Personally I prefer to avoid this method, as it often seems to result in a ’step’ on the join. I have not tried it on this kit, so it may be feasible, but on my Tristar I joined the tail units to their respective fuselages, to make two ‘normal’ fuselage halves. If you do the job on a flat surface, everything should be in line. The Tristar came out with an almost perfect join, so I will be tempted to do it this way with the MD-11 kit as well. The cockpit glazing is done with a complete unit, including the roof. The moulding captures the look of the DC-10/MD-11 cockpit windows very well, so I’ll be interested to see how it looks on the completed fuselage. A set of pre cut window masks is on the main masking sheet. The wings have restrained engraved panel lines and are nicely shaped, having the distinctive kink at the roots from mid chord to trailing edge Not easy to photograph, but I’ll give it a try. The engines in this kit are the General Electric CF6-80C2D1F, with separate hot and cold sections, compressor and turbine fan discs. The no.2 engine (tail) is also provided in full, which is pleasing to see. Most MD-11’s used this engine, although there was the option of the Pratt & Whitney 4460 or 4462. I believe that a version of the kit may be produced in the future with the P&W engines. The fuselage underside has a large insert for the wing box, in a style that will be familiar to anyone who has built any of Revell’s wide body Airbus kits. Interestingly a spar is also provided, which goes in before the under fuselage part. The wings later slide over this stub spar, which should add strength and assist in getting the wing to fuselage join lined up. . The landing gear legs are well detailed, including the characteristic central main gear leg, but all the wheels are in halves. The hub detail on them is excellent, and very sharply defined. It is a small point, but I always appreciate the wheel hubs being clearly defined from the tyre like this. It makes painting them so much easier, quite important when there are 24 hub ‘sides’ to do. Decals and markings. The box top has a very distinctive looking MD-11 of Finnair on it, and you can’t fail to notice all the cartoon characters down the side. These are the ‘Moomins’ from the childrens stories by Finnish author Tove Jansson. I know this because when my daughter was young, we had Moomin books, videos, and toys in the house! The big decal sheet contains all the Moomin decals for OH-LGF, and an alternative Santa and his sleigh scheme for OH-LGC. The printing looks really good, the colours are right, the print itself is razor sharp, and everything is in perfect register. Without a doubt these are the best decals I have yet seen from MikroMir. It they work as good as they look, I’ll be well satisfied. The Belgian airline CityBird is provided as a third option, but is only shown on the side of the box, so airliners.net will be your friend if you go for this one. The big ‘CityBird’ logos are not decals, but come as masks, meaning that you really need to spray these. (Or maybe its just me, but I’ve always had paint ‘creep’ under masks when using a brush, whereas I’ve never had any trouble with spraying I used masks on a BPK ‘Air Canada Jazz’ Bombardier CRJ-200, and was very impressed with them). Conclusion Airliner modellers have long had the MD-11 near the top of their with list, so this release is very much appreciated. It has a slight ‘limited run’ look to the plastic parts, with the fuselage mating seam needing cleaning up, the rear fuselage being separate, and the wheels being all in halves. None of this will be of much importance to most builders though, as at long last we have an injection moulded MD-11 . The quality of all the mouldings look to be very good, the fine recessed lines are very restrained and delicate, to the point that you won’t want to lose them by using too many coats of primer and paint. Undoubtedly it will build up into an impressive model, I think it is a good looking aircraft, and an essential one to have in any collection of modern airliners. It’s great to see that after many years of ’drought’, new airliner models have been released in the past couple of years, and with the Argosy & D-11 MikroMir provided a couple from near the top on many peoples ‘wants‘ list.. Already the aftermarket producers have released numerous decal sheets for the various airlines who operated MD-11’s , so it looks set to be a popular model, and deserves to be. Highly Recommended Review sample courtesy of

Airspeed AS57 Ambassador 1:144 Welsh Models I've always wanted an Ambassador in my airliner collection, it is such a gracefull looking aitcraft. It is harldly likely to ever be issued as an injection moulded kit, so thank goodness Welsh Models have provided a vac-form kit. It is a fair bit of work to cut out and prepare all parts, but it goes together quite well. This one has been on the bench for over 2 years now, mainly because I dithered about what scheme to finish it in. I really wanted to do it in the early BEA scheme but could not track down a decal sheet, and Densil at Welsh Models had sold out. Earlier this year I revived it and got on with painting it in the Dan Air scheme the kit provided decals for, although these are mainly just the titles, logos amd registrations. All the cheat lines you have to paint yourself. The paint job required before you can start decalling; 'With something else' - a double this time!. It goes well with the Welsh Models HS.748 Budgie; And I couldn't resist parking these 2 together, for 1 obvious reason; Thanks for looking, John

Revell 1:144 Airbus A320. 26 Decals 'British Caledonian'. This is the venerable Revell kit from the 'Eidelweiss' boxing, finished with 26 Decals laser printed British Caledonian Decals.I was motivated to do it when I ordered my BCAL Viscount decals from Ray, and saw this also on his website. The A320 almost made it into service wearing this livery and was undergoing flight testing in it. Unfortunately BCAL were taken over by British Airways before it was delivered, so was repainted in the BA livery before it left the factory. A sort of 'What if' that actually happened. Story here. They were early 100 series A320's that didn't have the wingtip fences, or the strakes on the engine cowlings. British Airways were so impressed with them that they broke from their dominant ordering of Boeing 737's and purchased their own fleet of A319, A320, and A321 aircraft, many of which are still in service. With something else. It had to be the Viscount that started this BCAL theme off. One tip when using laser printed decals is that they often do not contain any white printing. This scheme requires a fine white line under the yellow part of the cheatline. Rather than try and mask & paint it before decal application, I photocopied the decal sheet. Then I Placed the copy over some solid white decal sheet and cut along the bottom edge of the yellow cheatline to give me oversized white areas. These went on the model first, then the cheatlines went of top. Both were applied at the same time and could be moved relative to each other. I just eased the white parts into position with the tip of a blunt knife. I only did one side at a time, letting the first one dry completely before doing the other side the next day. only the bottom edge of the white needs to be crisply cut. Thanks for looking, John

Friends, After hitting a rough patch with my 777 I wanted to hammer out a quick build to get some mojo back and try out a few new ideas related to paint and finishing. I have a dozen or so 1/200 Hasegawa kits ready for paint, so I grabbed this 737-800 and a set of appropriate decals. The paint job wasn't much of a challenge, I admit, but I've been wanting to practice polishing my clear coat to get a really deep, smooth gloss finish so it was preferable to keep it simple. Also, I had never used Rib Hobby decals before, but I was very impressed with how well they went on the model... Anyway, I just applied a coat of Future to seal the model, and I will attempt to polish the finish once the clear cures. So, for now, I'm not ready to call it finished... Thanks for taking a look!

Friends, I'm planning to make some headway on my Revell 777-300ER. I had started this kit months ago, but it sat shelved due to work and life priorities. I am also working on a Zvezda 767-300, and learned by working on that model that I absolutely will never again use the clear plastic styrene window pieces unless I'm trying to have the windows open. To that end I cracked open the 777, which I had already closed, and ripped out the clear styrene to be replaced with apoxie sculpt. Having left the apoxie to cure overnight, the plan this morning is to re-seal the fuselage and get it ready for primer. The ultimate objective on this one is B-KPL, a Cathay Pacific 777-300ER in the OneWorld scheme, and I hope to try a few new tricks that I've learned from the other modellers here. Thanks for taking a look!

S&M Viscount. 1:144 26 Decals 'British Caledonian Commuter'. I have a few of these kits and decided to attempt some simple improvements to it. Mainly, the nose is too blunt, the cockpit 'bulge; a little too 'square' and the trailing edges could do with thinning down as could the props. All is detailed in this Work in Progress thread I also used the Viscount detail set from 26 decals, which provides all the panel lines, intake, etc, and makes a huge difference to the model. It is essential if you are building one of these. I think the British Caledonian livery is one of the all time best ever carried by an airline, really classy. They only had 1 Viscount, which was operated on their behalf by British Air Ferreies, and did not last long in this scheme before it was modified and lost that lovely Scottish lion on the fin. With something else. A Welsh Models vac form Viscount in BEA Red square. Thanks for looking John

Friends, My name is Andrew and I, obviously, am a new member on this site. This being my first post, please allow me to briefly self-introduce. I'm from the States, currently located in Los Angeles, CA, and have been building models intermittently for the past 20-ish years. I used to build airliners regularly about 10 years ago, but have not built any models in the past two years. I recently answered the call to build some airliners again, and so here we are! The reason I joined this site, among other things, is because a lot of the references and resources I came across in my return to modelling led me here. I have found an incredible amount of new information on this site, along with some amazing model builds, airliners and otherwise. In short, my current modelling psyche has been heavily influenced by the members here, so I hope to make my own small returns. Enough babbling! The present model is the historic Revell 737-800, cut down to the length of a -700. The last time I built one of these I used resin engine and winglet replacements, but this time I wanted to build the airliner without aftermarket pieces. As such, I modified and reshaped the winglets with sheet styrene, a-la Viking's sticky in the Civil Modelling forum, and used styrene tube to create the engine intakes. Panel lines were preserved and/or re-scribed, because I'm one of THOSE guy when it comes to panel lines, and antennas and pokey-things were scratched from brass rod and/or styrene sheet. I'm not 100% content with the build: It has obvious problems that I'm happy to acknowledge, but it feels good to build an airliner, learn some new techniques, and actually finish my first model in years. And my apologies for the picture quality: My cell phone has seen better days, and my girlfriend took my lightbox for some project she's working on... PH-BGO, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines:

Tupolev Tu-134. CSA and Interflug Zvezda 1:144 with Avia Decals The kit is the beautiful Zvezda 134, one of my favourite kits of recent years. It really is a beautifully moulded kit with almost perfect fit, and a pleasure to build. Add to that the fact that is a beautiful looking bird, combining good looks with toughness and it is an all round winner! I already built one with the kit supplied Aeroflot markings, so got hold of Avia Decals sheet from Hannants, with CSA, Interflug, and LOT options. It is slightly pricey, but good value when you consider that you can do 3 models with it. All 3 options have a slightly different window layout to the Aeroflot version, with an extra window on the starboard side at the front, and the small forward window relocated nearer the front. It is pretty simple and Avia explain it all. They even supply a vinyl template that you line up on the existing forward window, and it has holes in to tell you where to drill out the new windows. Simple and very effective, I was very impressed with this set, the decals themselves went on beautifully. Thats a 10 out 10 for Avia from me! On with the photos. First up CSA; Interflug version. Very similair, I know. But I like both, so built both! Both together; And with the glass nosed Aeroflot version, built straight from the box Thanks for looking, John

Boeing 737-200 South African Airways 1:144 Airfix with modifications The third of my modified Airfix 737-200's. The mods are to cut away the cockpit area and replace it with the clear moulded part from a Daco/Skyline 737 kit, and correcting the engines from the 100 series to the 200 Advanced. This involves lengthening them and fattening the pylons. I also added a bit of cockpit detail and a pair of crew figures from N gauge railway passengers, and opened out the wheel bays to make them 3 dimensional. The Airfix kit is old but basically good, and benefits from these few mods. After all this work some top quality decals are required, so it was straight to Draw Decals website where I found this beautiful scheme. SAA had one the best liveries of all time, and their aircraft were usually kept in sparkling condition. Underside showing the opened out wheel bays Crew at work! With something else. No contest. It has to be my other ZS- registered aircraft, the hilarious 737-800 in Kulula livery, also from Draw Decals. Some info about the modifications. Test fit of the cut out for the Daco clear part Modified engines. Lengthened with a 6mm section of a bomb, covered with Milliput. Pylons widened with plastic sheet. Basic parts for improving the model It was all extra work, but well worth the effort. Thanks for looking, John

Roden have released two gorgeous kits of the Vickers Super VC10 in 1/144 scale. This iconic aircraft is available in two different versions, with either the distinctive BOAC livery or East African livery.

Airfix 1:144 Boeing 737 TwoSix 'Air Europe' Decals. Airwaves Etched brass galleys Plus my own scratch building Ok, I went a bit mad here and didn't know when to stop. It started out as an attempt to improve the old 1960's Airfix kit of the Boeing 737-200, and just kept going and going as I had more ideas. I already posted what the improvements were in my second attempt but which got finished first. Basically it was; - Replace the cockpit glazing with the part provided in Daco's 737 kits. - Scratchbuild some interior detail for the cockpit, including the flight crew. - Open up the main and nosewheel bays, which are just shallow opening on the kit - Improve the engines. They are too short in the kit, and have the early 'skinny' pylons only applicable to the first 100 or so machines produced. - The passenger cabin windows are just little square shapes. I filed the all top and botton to open them up to oval shape. - I had a etched brass set for the forward integral airstairs, so they were added. - Adding the Airwaves etched brass detail set, which consists of the forward and aft galleys. - Then I decided that a few rows of passenger seats were necessary. - I though a base would be nice, so made one. - As I had opened the luggage bay and fitted a floor, it really needed a loading vehicle to park there. - I has a set of etch brass luggage wagons, but no tug. Both this and the luggage wagon are scratch built, and generic rather than replicas of actual vehicles. - A tow bar on the nose would be nice. So I scratched on up from rod & tube. Must make a tug though! - Finally, it needed some passengers walking out. These are unpainted from Noch, and its taken me weeks to paint them all. The model represents G-DDDV known to its crews not as 'Delta Victor' but as the 'Dirty Vicar'. She followed my father around after he retired from British Airways, and made subsequent comebacks with Air Europe and then Gulf Air. G-DDDV appeared in all 3 liveries. There is a little figure of 'Viking dad' sitting in the left hand seat, just visible through the cockpit. Enough talk, on with the photos; Crew visible in cockpit; The little scratchbuilt vehicles; Improved wheelbays; Some of the interior bits; Thanks are due to member Skodadriver who supplied me with the Daco clear cockpit part and silver frame decal, enabling me to go a bit mad and do this! Cheers John

Douglas DC-4 Transworld Airline (TWA) 1:144 Minicraft with Draw Decals The DC-4 is one of my favourite aircraft, it did sterling work in the post war period and a few are still working today, such as those with Buffalo Airways in Canada. The Minicraft kit is a real beauty, one of their best, although it is getting hard to find now. Decals are from Draw Decals and went on beautifully, as usual. The paintwork is Alclad 'polished aluminium' on the fuselage and cowlings, with the wings & tailplanes in Citadel Runefang steel. And 'with something else'. Well 2 really as I seem to be developing a TWA theme. Rodens DC-3 straight from the box with TWA markings; And Fly's DC-9 with Draw Decals TWA set; Thanks for looking John

Bombardier CRJ-200 - 1:144 BPK Air Canada Jazz This kit was released earlier this year and Reviewed here It followed on from their earlier kit of the CRJ-100 This build has been almost finished for a couple of months now, but work commitments have been keeping me from my bench more than I would like. I finally got the finishing touches of photo etch on this week. These are lovely little kits with an innovative solution for the glazing. The nose section is moulded in clear and the side windows are clear strips with masks provided for the windows. On this release the 'Jazz' titles and maple leaf on the tail are also masks, allowing you to do the red or green versions. The tail logos are supplemented with decal 'leaf veins' for detailing. I am extremely impressed with them. They needed care applying to the fuselage, but look absolutely brilliant once done. It gives that 'painted on look' becasue they are! Enough words, on with the photos; And 'With something else' its brother the dash 100 in 'Delta Connection; A little extra to show the fuselage & tail masks in process; Now we have the 1:72 vesrion also. This has the 'Jazz' stencils as well. I'll be doing the green version this time. Thanks for looking John

Lockheed Super Constellation Trans Canada Airlines. 1:144 Minicraft Surely the most graceful of airliners, the Lockheed Constellation is in my top 3 all time favourites.It wore many and varied schemes over its long service, but the TCA one is just about the most attractive. I have a family connection also, as my father flew these in his first airline job after leaving the RCAF. The kit is from Minicraft, and is a trouble free, if a little fiddly, build. The decals are from CanMilAir printed in 2 little sets. I was slightly wary of the 3 part cheatline, but it all worked beautifully and I was suitably impressed. The only thing I altered was the silver cabin (passenger) windows, which I overlayed with some clear decal sheet sprayed with Tamiya 'Smoke' to darken them a little. And a slightly unusual 'with something else' - An actual TCA Miniature of Canadian Club whiskey liberated from the galley of a TCA Connie all those years ago, still with us and holding its contents! Family heirloom I call it Thanks for looking, John

Bombardier CRJ-200 1:72 BPK (Big Planes Kits) The Bombardier CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet) is a a highly successful small airliner which started life as a development of the Canadair Challenger, and has been developed and stretched from the -100 series to the -1000 series. Entering service in 1992 the 50 seat CRJ-100 was soon developed into the CRJ-200 with more efficient engines, and sold widely to many airlines around the world, with a total of 1,021 of both models being delivered. The stretched CRJ-700/900/1000 series is still in production, with over 600 having been delivered. CRJ's can be seen at virtually any major airport around the world, and are likely to be in service for many more years. BPK from Ukraine have already released models of the CRJ-100 and 200 in 1:144 scale, which are lovely little models, reviewed here. In a logical move they have now released them both in 1:72 scale, with different marking options for each. The CRJ-200 has been received for review at Britmodeller, and comes in BPK's familiar yellow box with a sturdy cardboard base unit. A side profile of an 'American Eagle' CRJ adorns the lid, with the side panels announcing a Pilatus PC-6 in 1:144 and a Boeing 737-100 in 1:72 as 'Coming soon'. That will have many a modeller waiting with eager anticipation! Lifting the lid, we find that there are a number of large mouldings, several sprues, a bag of resin parts, an etched fret, a large clear moulding of the nose, a set of decals, a set of masks, and instructions. Most interesting is the now familiar style of BPK clear moulding for the cockpit area. This is a very innovative way of producing the cockpit glazing, and having used it on the 1:144 CRJ's I can confirm that it works really well. The unit comes sealed in its own ziplock bag to protect it, and is cleanly moulded. The actual window panels are lightly marked out, and the mask sheet provides each panel as a separate unit to apply before painting. Next we have the two fuselage halves, which look huge after the 1:144 versions. Similarly they have recessed channels where the glazing strips will go. On the 1:144 versions I cut them out leaving a 1 mm lip all around to retain the clear glazing strips. Panel lines are very lightly recessed, BPK have this exactly right as they are just deep enough to be visible, rather than the heavy 'trenches' that some manufacturers seem to favour. I prefer the BPK style every time. The 1:144 CRJ gives a sense of how much bigger this 1:/72nd version is. The lower wing is a single full span piece, the advantage of which is that the dihedral is perfectly set for you. The uppers are separate pieces for each side. Again the panel lines are lightly recessed, giving visible but subtle detail. Sprue D contains most of the cockpit parts, as having provided clear cockpit windows, there is a complete cockpit unit to put inside. Seats, control columns, panel, coaming, and etch brass details are provided, along with decals for the instruments and even the bulkhead behind the pilots seats. Rudder pedals are shown, but not numbered, on the instructions. It is a simple deduction to work out that these are parts Pe34 on the etch sheet. The mouldings are very nicely done, and will only require minimal clean up once removed from the sprue. Sprue E holds the engine cowlings, pylons, flap tracks and airstairs. This last is an interesting option. A very complete set of airstairs is provided, which on the real CRJ is the front door which hinges at the bottom and drops down to form the stairs. The etch brass sheet provides a number of fine details and handrails.The front door itself is moulded shut on the fuselage half, and will require removal if you want to use the open option. Chain drilling and cutting with a sharp knife will probably be the best way to do this, and then of course you will need to scratchbuild a bulkhead and floor to sit inside. I've started doing this on 1:144 scale airliners and while it is not for beginners, is not actually that hard to do. It is nice to have the option here for the more advanced modeller to take up. The engines are made from injection moulded upper and lower halves and pylon, with resin exhaust cones and intakes. The resin parts eliminate the need for any join seams around the intakes, and simplify the cowlings into very simple units to make. Sprue F provides the fin, tailplanes, and winglets. All very cleanly moulded with the same fine recessed detail seen on other sprues. Sprue G holds the glazing strips for the cabin windows. Unlike the 1:144 versions which are plain, these have the windows etched lightly into them, which will help with locating the individual masks. Also on the sprue is the extreme nose tip and landing lights. We even have the individual bulbs (G5 & G6) to go behind the landing light glazing! Resin. Seven strips of resin components are supplied, and feature incredible detail. All are flawlessly moulded with not trace of any air bubbles or flaws whatsoever. The detail on the engine fans is outstanding, I doubt that it could be made any better or realistic. Each fan blade is beautifully curved along it's length, and separate from each of it's partners. The engine nozzles are similarly impressive, with beautiful compound curve shapes and lightly recessed detail. The wheels have circumferential treads, with separate hubs featuring crisp and fine detail. Separate tyres and hubs always makes painting so much easier than single mouldings, full marks to BPK again here. The resin components are some of the most beautiful I have seen, and without a doubt are of the highest standard possible. Etch. A small brass fret is packed with a large number of small details, mainly aerials and vents found at various points around the airframe. It is surprising how many tiny blade aerials are scattered around the CRJ. Decals and masks. Two main colour schemes are provided, two for the 'American Eagle' shown on the box lid, and 'Air Canada Jazz' in either red or green. A full set of stencils are also present, for placing at various points around the airframe. The Air Canada Jazz schemes are the most interesting, as the main elements are not decals but masks. This provision was also made with the 1:144 kit, where vinyl masks are applied to the model and paint airbrushed on to give the 'Jazz' titles on the fuselage and the maple leaf on the tail. I have actually used these on the 1:144 scale kit, and they work brilliantly. What you actually use is not the 'Jazz' lettering, but the vinyl around it. It needs care to apply it to the fuselage and line up correctly, not forgetting to put the oval inside the 'J'. It has since been suggested to me that a lightly soaped solution could be applied to fuselage first, which will allow some room to move the vinyl around. Apparently this is how it is done on full size vehicles. I have not tried it, but mention it here in case anyone else wants to have a go. Once pressed down, I airbrushed some white onto the masks. The idea being if that there was any paint 'creep', it would be white and match the fuselage. The red was then airbrushed on top to give an even coverage. Pulling the masks off revealed a very pleasing result. Another lesson I learned was to be very careful removing the masks. I managed to put a couple of scratches in the red paint with my knife blade and had to touch them in with more red paint. It was only because I was using the tip of the blade to lift the masks, and slipped a couple of times, so take care. The result is well wort it though. This is still under construction and needs all the silver work applied to leading edges etc, and well as the wheels. This is the result of using the masks on the 1:144 CRJ to spray the red paint on. Conclusion. The two 1:144 BPK CRJ's I have built are little beauties. I love the way BPK approach their kits and devise innovative solutions for them. The complete cockpit glazing sections and cabin windows are good example of this, and give the most superior results. The fit of parts on the 1/144 kits was excellent, and this 1/72 version looks to have the same finesse and precision about it. Although probably not suited to absolute beginners, they are very enjoyable and satisfying kits to build, and this larger version should be stunning when finished. Highly recommended Review sample courtesy of

Airfix BAC 1-11 500ED. Two-Six British Airways 'Landor' decals. Ok, so if you want a beautiful, accurate 1-11 500 then you need to get hold of the Authentic Airliners resin kit. But I got this out of the stash and thought I'd have a bit of fun improving it and converting it from a short bodied 200 series 1-11 into the stretched 500 series. I've thouroghly enjoyed it from start ti finish, and have a second 500 under construction as well now. Lots of work with sheet plasticard undertaken, full build log Here The main changes were extended fuselage, extended wingtips, new wing fences & flap tracks, engine pylons, engine hushkits, and a reshaped nose. The decals from Two-Six were superb and a delight to use. A plus is that the sheet covers all BA Landor 1-11's incluing the short bodied 200's, so if you don't want to do all the extending work, you can just do the wing fences, flap tracks, and nose. I chose to do G-AVMO which was preserved at Cosford for many years and is now at east Fortune in Scotland, very fitting really as it was named 'Lothian Region'. Enough words, here is the completed conversion. And 'with something else' - another 1-11 500, this one a Welsh Models Vac with Two-Six BEA decals. Thanks for looking. On with the second conversion now, which will be in BEA Red Square finish, to show the BEA/BA 1-11 500 in its first and last schemes. John

Handley Page Hermes IV BOAC, early 1950s This was from the Welsh Models 1/144 kit – vac form fuselage / resin wings & tailplane / white metal undercarriage. I started off my Hermes project using the FRsin kit because I wanted BOAC markings which Welsh Models don’t do, but I gave up on that. The FRsin fuselage is a large, solid resin moulding and in my kit the resin had not cured properly, this resulting in the resin bubbling up through 4 or 5 layers of Halfords white primer & appliance white. So thank you Denzil at Welsh Models for producing a very usable kit on which I used the FRsin decals. Finish is Halfords Appliance White on top. The natural metal parts are Halfords Nissan Silver with a coat of Daler Rowney ‘Goldfinger’ silver (which seems to be the current marketing name for what was ‘Rub N Buff’). This was then polished and sealed with Klear before decaling. The Hermes was not the most successful airliner ever, but it fills a gap in the BOAC collection. It has a marked similarity to the DC-4, and hence the picture with my Minicraft SAS DC-4.

BAC 1-1 200 Converted to 1-11 510ED I've been rather busy with the day job taking me away from home for long stertches of time this year, which has affected my modelling time. I've not been able to use my workbench, compressor/airbrush much, so found myself looking for something to make with minimal tools paints etc. I came up with this, the old Airfix 1-11 which has been around for forty odd years, and figured I could do some cutting and gluing to improve and convert it. It has a few problems, the main ones being that the nose is too blunt (correct for the very earliest 1-11's though) ourboard wing fences needing deleting and moving inboard, wing landing lights deleting, and flap track fairings need lengthening and altering to 'canoe' type. To make it more interesting I decided to stretch the fuselage to a 500 series aircraft, with extended wingtips. And then I realised I'd need to 'hushkit' the engines. Interestingly, I have an original issue of the kit, and the most recent boxing hasn't half seen the box size grow! Decals will be for the final 'Landor' scheme the BA 1-11's wore before retirement. Not wanting to cut up 2 1-11 kits for the fuselage extensions, I rolled some 20 thou plasticard into half rounds, sawed the fuselage halves fore and aft of the wing, and on a flat surface glued the extesnsions to the insides of 1 fuselage half. Thats 18.1 mm forward and 10.5 mm aft. When that was set the next day, I did the other side, matching it to the one already done. and putting it on a flat surface to set. This left a big recess to fill in and build out the fuselage side. More rolled plasticard (curved around my x-acto knife handle) filled in the recesses, with quarter sections. one on top and one on the bottom, then the side. White milliput was slathered on and left to set. A fair bit of sanding followed to flush the extensions in with the rest of the fuselage. I didn't take any photos unfortunately. I cut a vertical slot in the nose and glued in a rough profile of the new more pointed nose shape, build up around it with milliput, and sanded it all to shape. It;s a huge improvement over the blunt kit shape. The glazing fitted nicely so I will leave it clear. It was sanded to belend it in and polished back to clarity with micromessh. The wings received attention next, with new tips cut roughlt to shape, glued on and then sanded down to shape. The flap track fairings wer cut off, and I sawed slots into the wings for new plasticard ones. Likewise the outer wing dences were removed, a stlot marked out with an olfa p-cutter where the new ones went, and new fences glued in. They were approximately shaped first and the sanded down to proper size one firlmy set. The engines needed some thought. The 'Hushkits' are a long extension on the rear. I found some bombs that had the right cross section to do the job, and cut them to size. I didn't like the engine mounts as they have half on the fuselage and half on the engine cowling making for a pig of a job to eliminate the seam down the middle. So I made new ones from plasticard, and sliced the kit items off. Engine pylons are on now. I'll have to figure out how to do the 'crinkled' exhausts on the hushkits now. Wings, tail and engines can then go on, and priming can commence. Thanks for looking John

Hi, i'd like an advice or your tips / tricks on how to mask complex curves on airliners bodies, see here below. How to make the masking tape horizontal and nicely elyptical? Many thanks for your tips!

Bombardier DHC8-Q400. F.toys 1:300th scale. The Q400 was developed from the De Havilland Canada Dash 8 twin turboprop STOL airliner. (DHC is now Bombardier Aerospace). Starting with the 100 series, the Dash 8 has progressively stretched fuselages through the 200, 300, and 400 models, although only the 400 remains in production. Widely used, Q400's can be seen at airports around the world, in a wide variety of liveries. There is no 1:144 scale injection moulded kit of this aircraft, so I was pleased to recently stumble across this little 1:300 model on my travels. Effectively it is half the size that it would be in 1:144 scale. It is click together and pre-painted, with just a few decals to apply, but the detail is very fine and I think it is a cracking little model. It seems like a bit of a cheat, as I have hardly had to do much to build it and nothing to paint it, but it is unusual so I hope you like it. And for an idea of how small it is; And the generic box it came in. The CRJ's look nice! Thanks for looking, John

Douglas DC-3, Trans World Airline. 1:144 Roden. This aircraft needs no introduction! It is the new Roden kit in 1:144 and a lovely little kit it is too. No issues with construction, it fits together beautifully. The decals are a big improvement over previous Roden offerings, but still need to be handled carefully. Finish is Alclad with Citadel silver for the control surfaces. We could do with a few aftermarket decal sheets for this one, I'll certainly build more, it is a great little kit and a huge improvement over the Minicraft offering. It isn't very big at all, with the modellers standard reference point, a jar of Tamiya paint; And finally, the 'with something else' picture. It could only be the Fly Models DC-9-10 with Draw Decals TWA markings. Thanks for looking, John