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I'd forgotten all about this one, but chatter around the Baby Boomers GB stirred my memory and in turn the stash. Too far over the 20% for that GB but I'm feeling it for a KUTA. No pics until phone broken, but gone backwards a little for starters as tugged the fuselage apart to rework it, and add more ballast. My main incentive is to get to the KLM 40th anniversary decals from F-Decal. Before that, I see a lot of struggle and pain.

My entry will be Minicrafts 1/144 Legend of Aviation, The Douglas DC-3. The kit comes with 3 decal options, I have gone for the all over orange KLM version. I have some concerns over the decals, as they are quite old, did test one and it seemed to behave itself so fingers crossed. Plan is to build this wheels up, as a desk display model. Build wise I am going with the Bruce Wayne Option, Planning to start about 3ish this afternoon, means I should complete it before the Indy 500 starts,

Afternoon all, This is a build from about 10 years ago - the Aircraft in Miniature vacuform Boeing 747-300. I had it out of the loft today as it needed some repairs and I thought I'd take some up to date pictures that hadn't been sabotaged by the Photobucket debacle. This is a vacuform model that comes as a basic shell - it was fully scribed and wheel bays scratch-built. The decals were from DrawDecal and paints were from Halfords. I had the KLM blue custom-mixed to match the crown on the tail. The kit provides white metal landing gear as well as resin intakes and exhaust cones which makes life a lot easier. I think it took about 4 months from start to finish and was pretty straightforward, apart from the size. I finished it as one of KLM's 747-306 Combis from the mid-1990s. S1030348 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030350 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030351 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030355 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030357 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030359 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030362 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030367 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030369 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030371 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030375 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr S1030381 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr In this picture you can see I've placed a 12"/30cm rule to show the size... it's HUGE. S1030383 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr Regards to all, Tom

Right, my first WIP topic. Normally I'm only active in the Dutch ModelBrouwers forum, but I was persuaded to post a WIP here as well :). I usually build vintage civil aircraft (i.e. VC-10, Trident, 707, etc.) and I'm especially a fan of Soviet build civil aircraft, but from time to time I build more modern aircraft as well (as stated before, my goal is to have at least one model of every type of civil aircraft that has room for at least 12 passengers and has a closed cockpit). As for the liveries, I try to build them in Dutch colours (KLM, Martinair, Transavia, Air Holland, etc.). If none of the Dutch companies has flown in it I just choose what I like or is available. Since a few years ago I have made a rule for myself to only start a new build when an old one is finished. That has worked very well for me as I now actually finish models! There are still a few unfinished models from a few years ago though and the A330-300 is one of them. As such, I figured it's now time to finished it! I flew in the A330-300 in December 2011 to New York, albeit an A330 operated by Delta. All right, let’s get started! I’m pretty sure the A330 is well known amongst civil aviation enthousiasts, so I’m not going to write too much about the aircraft itself. It has been developed in conjunction with the A340 and in the A330-300 version there is room for 436 passengers. The two main versions are the -200 and -300 and the latest version will be the NEO. KLM operates both the -200 and -300. The kit is from Revell. I'm not going to spend too much time to make it as accurate as possible (its an OK kit alread). I’m aware of the fact that the nose isn’t entirely correct and the winglets are a bit too straight. It doesn’t bother me too much, so I will leave it as it is in this case. The kit comes with PW engines, but KLM uses the GE engines. At first I was contemplating scratch building the GE engines, but luckily 26 decals supplies a resin GE set, so I bought those instead This was the state I left the model in 5 years ago. At the time I always left the windows open. I never leave them open now, so I will close them with putty. Normally I close windows outside in, but obviously that's not possible now anymore :p. The decals that come with the kit are excellent. Designed by Gaston Roca from Nazca Decals and printed by Cartograf. The KLM decals are from DRAW. I have used them before on my MD-11 and they are very good as well. The Corogard is from 8A decs. The window and cockpit decals are from Authentic Airliners The first thing I did was fill up the windows with filler. I used mostly Revell putty for this. I masked it with tape, so you don't get too much putty on the model. I did the same with the rest of the fuselage. The result after the first sanding session. It's been a while since I last did a widebody so my arm is aching from all that sanding! The first round of primer. I used Vallejo primer, which I generally use. As always, there are some seams left, so a second round of putty is necessary. In this case I use filler for cars, as you can sand it really smooth. The result after the second round of sanding.... ...and the result after the second round of primer. I'm happy actually with the result so far, apart from some small seams. That will be corrected in the third round of sanding/priming. And that's where I'm at. Plenty of work ahead of me. To be continued! Regards, Martijn

My latest finished project is the DC-10-30 in KLM colours. The kit, windows and windscreen decals are from Authentic Airliners. The decals are from the 26 and Revell (logo’s and registration). The kit is really great and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to build a DC-10-30. I made a detailed comparison between the Revell, Authentic Airliners, Welsh (fuselage) and Contrails (engine) offerings, which you can find on the Dutch page here. The AA kit is the winner (clearly). Although the kit isn’t terribly difficult to build, I did have some problems with the primer. By trying out various primers, I eventually found one that didn’t result in “fish eyes”. Also, this has been my longest project so far (over 70 hours). This has mainly been due to the paint scheme (it’s a pain to get the metal colours right), but in the end I’m rather happy with the result. For the paints I used Revell 50 with a dash of white of the upper fuselage, Alcladd II ALC-111 Magnesium for the exhausts, ALC-119 Airframe aluminium for the engines, ALC-116 semi matt aluminium for the different colours with the engines and ALC-105 polished aluminium for the belly of the fuselage and the engines and leading edges of the engines as well. I also used ModelMasters Chrome Silver as a wash to smooth out the colour differences in the engines (so they become less stark). The Coroguard was painted with Vallejo Primer and the simply putting Alclad II Aqua Gloss on top of it (I found the colour to be just right). Model Masters Canadian Vodoo Gray was used to the lighter part of the Coroguard as well as the wing/body fairing, a part of the nose and the trailing edges of the wings and horizontal stabilizers. The decals from 26 (which actually come from their MD-11 sheet) are excellent as well. I would not recommend using the Coroguard decals from Nazca, as they are designed for the wrongly shaped Revell kit and do not fit on the AA kit! My next project will be the Czech Master Resin Douglas DC-2 orange KLM 1:144, which is part of Dutch a group build. Anyway, enough talk. I hope you enjoy the pictures, thanks for looking and see you next time! And finally, a picture with its sibling the MD-11 (also Authentic Airliners) that I build two years ago.

The WIP is finished, so I decided to post the finished pictures here as well. I've wanted to make a DC-9 for a while now, but never came around to it until now. The DC-9 was the last civil aircraft that was designed exclussively by Douglas. I'm sure many civil aircraft enthousiast knows about the venerable DC-9, so no need to go into details here KLM had a total of 25 DC-9 aircrafts (both the -15 and the -30) and they served the airline from 1966 to 1989. I decided to build the DC-9-30 from Authentic Airliners. Many a great build has been made with Airfix and the kit is actually reasonably accurate, but this time I choose ease of building over price. With the airfix kit you have to do a lot more filling and sanding and I wanted to do something easy for now. Some things that I’ve noticed though is that the engines of Airfix are too short and too thick, the fuselage is too short, the vertical stabilizer has the incorrect shape and the wing sweep isn’t a 100% correct. Whether or not that is worth a more expensive resin kit is up to you. Anyway, without further ado: The DC-9 by Authentic airliners is a joy to build (as are all the other kits by AA). I’m happy with the way the colour of engines turned out. I’ve experimented a bit with the metal colours as I want to get more experience with them. After all, aircraft such as the DC-8 or DC-10 in KLM colours had their bellies entirely metal coloured in more or less the same colour as the DC-9 engines, so I can use all the practice I can get before I even start working on those! Thanks for looking and see you next time! Regards, Martijn

I've wanted to make a DC-9 for a while now, but never came around to it. Now's finally the time! The DC-9 was the last civil aircraft that was designed exclussively by Douglas. I'm sure many civil aircraft enthousiast knows about the venerable DC-9, so no need to go into details here KLM had a total of 25 DC-9 aircrafts (both the -15 and the -30) and they served the airline from 1966 to 1989. From an old Dutch newspaper article: "KLM has chosen the twin engined DC-9 as its successor to the six Vickers Viscounts, that have been in use since the sixties. There wasn't much choice. Apart from the DC-9 only the British BAC 1-11 was a possibility. However, since the positive experienceKLM has had with the DC-8, the DC-9 was an obvious choice" That wasn't entirly true though, as KLM did think about the French Caravelle for a while. However, when the negotiations with Air Franch in Air Union came to naught, a possible order for Caravelle's fell through. On hindsight not a bad thing, as the DC-9 was a better choice in this case. Still, she would have looked nice in a KLM livery... On a final side-note, KLM did fly the BAC 1-11, which was leased while waiting for their DC-9. I'm definitely going to build the BAC1-11 from AA in KLM colours one day. Anyway, I have flown on the DC-9-30 at least once! I can't remember exactly when, but it should have been somewhere by the end of the eighties, begin nineties. I can't remember if I have ever flown in a KLM DC-9, but I did fly one from Iberia of which I have a picture. The man with the red shirt in front is my father. The little running guy with a cuddling cloth in is hand is me I decided to build the DC-9-30 from Authentic Airliners. Many a great build has been made with Airfix and the kit is actually reasonably accurate, but this time I choose ease of building over price. With the airfix kit you have to do a lot more filling and sanding and I wanted to do something easy for now (my next build is probably going to be the Aeroflot AN-10, which will require a lot more work I presume). Let's get this show on the road! This is going to be it: The parts (all crisp and greatly moulded as per usual with AA): The decals are from F-Decal The cockpit and window decals are from Authentic Airliner decals. Resin models should be thoroughly washed. If not, you can have severe problems with painting later on (as I have learned from experience). Next, the parts can be removed from the casting leftovers. I use a small saw for this like on the picture, or a Dremel. Make sure to use respiratory protection and proper ventilation. Resin particles can be nasty for your lungs. The rudder should be attached seperatly. Nice one from AA, this makes for a more realistic effect! The stabilizers can be glued too. See what I mean when I say AA builds quickly? The engines will take up most of the time, due to the necessary filling, sanding and airbrushing the different shades of metal. Glued the behind of the fuselage. The engines have been glued as well and have been filled, just as the stern of the fuselage. The flap hinge fairings have been attached, Those look a lot nicer compared to the Airfix kit. The fit has been excellent so far. The small crannies that are left will be filled with Mr. Dissolved putty. The engines have been sanded, but still some slits are left. It will require a second round of filling and sanding. The stern has been sanded down as well. The fuselage, tail and engines are now ok, so they can be primed. I have used Mr. Resin for a primer. However, the wings can no longer be primed with Mr. Resin, as it is no longer available on the market. Hopefully the normal primer will work as well. The line that was left over from casting on the fuselage was still visible, so I had to sand that down a bit more. Still some small holes where left on the engines. I filled them with car filler and sanded it down with a fine grit for a more smooth whole. The airbrushing can already commence. I masked the lower half of the fuselage and added a normal white primer. The top of the fuselage has been airbushed! Is used Revell 50 with a bit of white to get the 80's KLM blue. The engines have been primed with Alclad II Gloss black primer (as a base for the metal) I'm not sure which metal colour to use for most of the engines. It's a dull metal colour, so I'm guessing I'm going to use either aluminium or steel, but I'm open for suggestions. To be continued!

Here’s the latest addition to my fleet - Minicraft’s lovely DC-4 with F-DCAL decals for the KLM white top livery. The kit is more or less out of the box. As usual the white is Halfords and the natural metal is AK Interactive Xtreme Aluminium with some Rub n Buff for contrast. The KLM decals performed a lot better than the SAS ones which I moaned about in my DC-6 RFI a few weeks ago. There are even fewer photos of KLM DC-4s than SAS DC-6s but from what I’ve seen details, particularly antennae, seem to have varied from aircraft to aircraft and some machines had long engine intakes while others had short ones so my model is “typical” rather than a 100% accurate replica of the real PH-DBZ. Next up should be a Dutch aircraft from a later generation - a 757 which is currently in the paint shop and which I’m planning to finish in Martinair colours. It will be a while before it’s ready and it might even be overtaken by one of my other projects. Time will tell! Thanks for looking and constructive criticism is always welcome. Dave G Starting number 2 (just to prove I can!)

Hi everyone, I'm posting my first inspection post today so I hope you enjoy! Today I'll present to you my 1st build, my KLM 777-200 ER in 1:144 scale! The kit was a Minicraft kit which was fairly easy to build. I know that there is the better option of the Revell/Zvezda 777-300 but I had built this over a year ago. Hopefully, you enjoy the model, as well as the youtube video I made of this build! If you would like to see the video the link is below. I plan on to post another airliner in the future, a British Airways 787-8. If you want a sneak peak you can watch the video already posted on my channel! Have a great day!

Hello everyone, This is to introduce my project for the Airliner III Group Build. I haven't built a 1/144 aircraft in 40 years and for some reason I was a little scared. I thought I would do an Airfix 1/72 De Havilland Dragon Rapide instead. Then, after a conversation with TrojanThunder I received a pleasant surprise in the mail; an Airfix 1/144 KLM DC 9. Thank you! I had said how much I liked this kit as a boy, and how it was now a bit hard to find at a sensible price. Well, I'm very grateful for it and now it is the subject of my build. If I have time I'll do the Dragon Ralide too, but I'm very enthusiastic about getting my mitts on this DC 9 so that's first ! Here's the really nice vintage box art: I really like the fuselage top blue in this KLM scheme I flew on one of these in 1974 from the UK to Copenhagen on the first step of a 'many hop' journey to Sydney. A number of airlines and airports were involved; Bahrain, Dahran, Singapore, Melbourne to name a few places, Thai Airlines, SAS and Qantas were some of the airlines. The DC 9 was one of the nicest aircraft on this trip, DC 8 and 10 were also involved. Thus, even though I won't be building it in the SAS markings of the one I flew in as a boy, the DC 9 holds special memories for me. Moreover, this kit does as I really enjoyed painting it as a young lad. Here are the contents, complete with Airfix Club application form - stated as 'The Coolest Club on the Planet!' The decals look to be in excellent condition: As an aside, to look more 'Civilised' in this civil group build, I splashed out on a new, big, Tamiya cutting mat from BNA Model World in Victoria. I'm down under and basically have to get everything mail order. BNA are really reliable and packed it in a nice big box to stop it getting bent, very thoughtful All I have done so far is wash the parts then detach them from the sprues; I hadn't yet detached them here: I was waiting for them to dry naturally. I got myself acquainted with the build sequence and it looks like, if all goes well, it could be quite straightforward. I hope I need a break from short-run kits, so Im hoping this is the mojo booster I need! I did look at a Hannants/Airwaves etch set for it, but it works out a little expensive with postage on its own, and I didn't want to wait (!), so decided just to have fun and go completely OOB. I know all the 'real' airliner people (I'm improvising here, its been 40 years!) will use etch doors, window decals and all sorts of things to make them look fabulous. I hope my little 'nostalgia build' will be ok. I will only deviate from OOB in that I won't be following the instructions and applying a blue decal all over the windows, then punching the windows out with a little tool that comes with the kit !! I'll be trying to mix a blue that matches the other decals and try to airbrush the stripe nicely down the fuselage. Thank you for watching Any suggestions or comments are very welcome Best regards Tony. Edited for spelling 18/7

Don't get your hopes up... this is more of a marker than anything as I'm pressing on with my Vignette GB first, http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235004500-railcar/ This though is my submission Plan is it to be a relaxing time straight OOB (my comfort envelope is being seriously expanded with my vignette build. Theory then is that this is pretty much all I need... I know slightly zero about the DC-7 (and that's rounding up) but fancied something to go with this little twinkle in my eye... http://www.noorderlicht.net/projecten/schiphol-1928/ jump to image 7 for a card model to download! First impressions are that there is a good lump of flash to clean up, I'm hoping that's the problem and it looks like it, else a warped fuselage awaits. Also the engraved panel lines look very deep unless they are distinctive on the original? From other comments on Britmodeller Roden decals are not the most enjoyable experience to be had so there may be a livery change. Thanks for stopping in but don't expect much to happen for a month or so. Also the many very proficient modellers on the site might want to look away now... I'm not a good modeller but I enjoy it and it relaxes me; I can get all the angst I need in my day-job!

Apparently news of this has surfaced at Telford, although I haven't seen anything official yet. A re-box of the Zvezda kit with decals for KLM. Anyone seen any more? Cheers, Andrew

This is the companion conversion to the Flyglobespan 736 which I posted a short time ago. Engines and winglets are modified from the kit parts and I shortened the main landing gear to improve the sit which I think is important with the long fuselage of the -900. It looks wrong, at least to me, with its tail in the air. The fuselage colour is Tamiya TS-76 Mica Silver oversprayed with TS-65 Pearl Clear. The blue is from an ancient tin of Humbrol 190 Blue Angels Blue. Like the 736 the decals are by Drawdecal. Thanks for looking (again!) and as always constructive criticism is welcome. Dave http://SAM_0038 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0041 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0040 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0039 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0042 by David Griffiths, on Flickr

KLM New Colors F-100's 1:144 Draw decal Derived from the F28 Fellowship, the Fokker 100 features a stretched fuselage, new wing and Rolls-Royce Tay engines. First flying in 1986, 283 were built before Fokker went into bankruptcy in 1997. A shorter version was developed by removing 4.7 metres from the fuselage, as the Fokker 70. Both versions have been operated by KLM Cityhopper, although the 100's have now all been retired from the fleet. The Revell kit is the only injection moulded model of the aircraft and is getting hard to find now. Fortunately Bradley on this forum kindly sent me an example. It build easily, but would suggest modifying the wing fit. There are 2 pegs on each wing that fit into holes in the root profile on the fuselage. Unforunately they knock the whole wing incidence down too low, and leave a step on the leading edge underside. I cut the forward pegs off my wings and simply aligned them with the root profile, which solved the problem. Decals are from Draw Decal reviewed here, representing the final scheme worn by the KLM Cityhopper fleet,and fit very nicely. There are options for 2 different window & door layouts, and a variety of registrations. Follow Draw Decals instructions and use the hot towel method of pressing the dcals on to the model, it works very well. One more addition to my airliner fleet; And finally with something else', my Revell Boeing 737-900 conversion, also using a Draw Decals KLM set Thanks for looking, John

KLM New Colors F-100's 1:144 Draw decal Derived from the F28 Fellowship, the Fokker 100 features a stretched fuselage, new wing and Rolls-Royce Tay engines. First flying in 1986, 283 were built before Fokker went into bankruptcy in 1997. A shorter version was developed by removing 4.7 metres from the fuselage, as the Fokker 70. Both versions have been operated by KLM Cityhopper, although the 100's have now all been retired from the fleet. This sheet represents the final color scheme worn by KLM's Fokker 100 fleet from 2002 until withdrawl in 2013. Two window & door arrangements are supplied for the port fuselage side, and a full set of registration numbers to cover the whole fleet. The sheet is printed on constant carrier film, so you need to cut around each individual design.After allowing 10 - 20 minutes for the decal to grip, a cloth dipped in hot water can be pressed over it to blend it in to the surface. I use a sheet of kitchen paper folded over many times, dipped in hot water from the kettle. The decals will the conform to any curvatures, and stick like limpets to the surface.As with all types of decals, a coat of Kleer/Future will seal them in. More info here With the Revell kit all painted and ready to accept the decals; And after application; More in Ready for Inspection Review sample courtesy of

Hi All Sad news for you Fokker fans im afraid! The first KLM Cityhopper Fokker F70 has been withdrawn from use and stored at Norwich International Airport, EGSH. It is ex Air France PH-KZV, 1995 build. Sad to see the first one go, but they are not going to get any younger sadly! KLM Cityhopper Fokker 70 PH-KZV by Bradley at EGSH, on Flickr KLM Cityhopper Fokker 70 PH-KZV by Bradley at EGSH, on Flickr Cheers Bradley