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Here is my finished Boeing 757-223(WL) in 1/144 scale from the Zvezda kit in the new livery from American Airlines registration N185AN. This kit goes together seamlessly with very little sanding and filling required. It’s great that is has both engine options as well as having either the newer blended winglets or the classic wing tips. I’ve never built the Minicraft or EE kits but I absolutely can’t recommend this kit enough! The decals are designed by Backdoor Decals and purchased through Nazca Decals. The coroguard section and detailing is from the Nazca Decals B757 detail sheet. The paint mix I went for was mixing Revell light grey 371, Revell white gloss 04 and a touch of Revell Silver 90. It was a case of keep mixing until I found a shade I was most happy with. It was then brush painted. Then I used Halfords Racking Grey for the wings and stabilisers. Metals are a mix of Revells aqua range. The decals are excellent quality and I highly recommend them! As always, all comments and feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for looking. Regards, Alistair

The Tu-144 was the world's first commercial supersonic aircraft when its prototype was introduced on the 31 December 1968, just two months before its rival, the British-French Concorde. It had an average service altitude of 16,000 meters and cruise speed of around 2,200 kmh. The Tu-144 was in operation from 1968 to 1999 during which a total of 16 planes were manufactured. Having a max speed that exceeded that of the Concorde also caused a nasty problem for the passengers since the noise level inside the cabin measured 90–95 dB on average. Unlike the Concorde the Tu-144 could only sustain supersonic speeds using afterburners. Despite the its nickname "Konkordski" the Tu-144 had quite a few differences in comparison with its rival, the most notable of which were the canard wings behind the cockpit that increased the lift in low speeds. The plane was some 4 meters longer and the wing span 3 meters wider compared to the Concorde. The average seating capacity was about 30 places more than the Concorde. At the Paris Air Show on 3 June 1973, the Tu-144 suffered a fatal accident when the first Tu-144 production airliner (reg 77102) crashed. At the end of the officially approved demonstration flight the aircraft entered a very steep climb before making a violent downwards turn. As it tried to recover the the port wing failed and the plane crashed destroying 15 houses and killing all six people on board and eight more on the ground. A popular Soviet theory for the crash was that the Tu-144 tried to avoid a French Mirage chase-plane that was attempting to photograph its canards, which were very advanced for the time. I bought the ICM Tu-144 kit when it was introduced in 2011 but for some reason I didn't start to build it at that time. When I finally decided to start the project I immediately saw that the decals were badly yellowed and despite the sun light treatment I gave them the problem didn't disappear. Moreover, the kit's windows were holes (which I usually don't like). So, I filled them and since the kit didn't have cabin or cockpit decals I ordered new ones from Nazca (that were for the very plane that crashed in Paris). I liked the elegant livery of the lost plane and for that reason and in memory of the tragic crash I chose to have those decals for my model. The kit itself is of high quality. The molding of the parts is crisp and well-detailed. There are even static wicks in the wings and rudder even if they are out of scale in my opinion. (so, I decided to leave them out) In the assembly I didn't have any special problems. The structure of the landing gears is a bit complicated but there are detailed instructions how to build them. I painted the white parts with Tamiya Fine Surface primer and and the grey underside with Mr Surfacer1000 primer. I coated the areas with Tamiya Gloss spray varnish. For the many details I used Vallejo and Humbrol paints. Birds of a feather (almost)

The maiden flight of the narrow-body Boeing 757 took place in 1982 and the plan of Boeing was to introduce a replacement to the already ageing Boeing 727. The production of the 757 ended in 2004 and a total of 1,050 aircraft were manufactured during those years. The most common sub-type was the 757-200 which could accommodate a maximum of 235 passengers. Air Finland was a charter airline founded in 2002. During their ten years of operation the company operated five Boeing 757-200’s to fly Finnish holiday makers to the southern sun. Air Finland's operations went belly up in June 2012, mainly due to higher fuel prices and market overcapacity. Boeing 757’s were also used by Finnair and the largest users of the 757 were Delta, United and American Airlines. I ordered the Nazca Decals sheet for Air Finland's earlier livery Boeing 757. There’s a Minicraft 757 kit but it’s got so negative comments in model reviews that it wasn’t an option. I chose instead the Russian manufacturer PAS-model’s 1/144 scale resin kit, which had the Rolls Royce engines used in Air Finland's 757’fleet. The kit was mostly ok, although there was quite a lot of flash to be cleaned up. Some sanding and putty was needed but as a whole assembling the model was relatively easy. I also scratched a lot of details into the model, e.g. air beacon lights,, pitot tubes, antennas, etc. The cockpit and cabin windows are from Authentic Airliner decals and the corogards from Flying Colors. I painted the body of the model with white Tamiya Fine surface primer, which I then sealed with Tamiya’s gloss varnish spray, TS-13. The gray areas of the wings I painted with Xtracolor X150 ,Canadian Voodoo grey and the blue areas of the engines by mixing Vallejo medium blue and Andrea blue. I also used other Humbrol and Vallejo paints for smaller details.

Here's my Revell 1/144 Embraer E190. It's finished in an Alliance Airlines special scheme commemorating the centenary of the RAAF using Nazca decals. This was a deliberately quick build - trying to get it done in the last couple of weeks of the ANZAC group build - so there are a few details I could have added but didn't. I also didn't use most of the details in the Nazca sheet - they just seemed a bit bold for the scale. thanks for looking Julian

It's been some time since I've posted any civvie stuff on BM. I'd like to say I've been to the Seychelles but that would just be wishful thinking.... Here's my take on the Matchbox Twin Otter dressed up in the markings of Air Seychelles : I started using the markings on the Nazca decal sheet but I couldn't live with the join line on the tail markings. Although I tried to paint over, my efforts to match the colours failed miserably - there's a surprise ! I ended up taking the easy way out by painting the markings with home-made masks 😋 Hope you can feel the sand between your toes ? mike

Hello crowd I'm really sorry to post something negative, but i'm being really wee weed off. My story. It all started somewhere around the last august (2012) I have ordered a Revell's A319 kit off the Amazon. As long as it was shipping i hesitated a bit and placed an order at Nazca decals for the D-AKNO decal. As the crisis was unfolding i started to remember the exact date of the order - it was the September 27th. 2012. At that time i was fully enthusiastic about this. A remark in advance: yes, the Nazca decals is the only place where this decal is available Some late october i began to worry about the order and sent some letters just to check if it was ever sent. After few letters into nowhere i finally got a reply from Gaston that my order was dispatched on the 6th of October. (i assume 'dispatched' as 'printed and sent' but anyway - two weeks?????) And also there was Gaston's remark about the bad russian post service blah-blah. Somewhere late december i began bombing Gaston's email again, just to get the little reply that the decals might got lost and i should have put an order for the 'cerified mail' (additional 2.50) I modestly asked to resend my order, but guess what the reply was? there was none! Alright. The winter holidays have passed and the time is now like late January. Again i'm sending letters to Gaston asking what would i do and receiving really short and mostly off-topic answers. Okay. Then i was on my vacation. As long as i was back home and sorted all i've placed another order for the same decal (for christ's sake!) and this time certified mail. It was mid March. On the 4 of April i received a post service tracking from Gaston. Oh, it's finally going to be done. Yes. Just out of curiosity i checked the tracking a few days later, and guess what i found? The postage was going to Chile! Now i was really mad but reasoned myself that it was just a matter of stupid mistake in numbers. I wrote another letter as polite as it could be asking Gaston to doublecheck the tracking number. He replied that he made a mistake and provided the 'correct' number. You know what? It was the same! It went to Chile. Chile is the freaking other side of the globe. I sent a letter asking Gaston to check the number again...and got no reply. I'm really tired now, it's May, 2013, almost 9 months have passed. 9 months i'm checking my mailbox. Everything eventually went in, except the Nazca decals. Some 30 euros spent on two orders, and i got NOTHING Now i'm considering washing off my plane and ordering some decals from the Draw decals. The worst thing is that most of the time you just don't get a reply on your letter. It's not that i insist you never use the Nazca service, it's just a story of mine. So sad. Steve P.S. Here is the link to my build http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234931041-revell-a319-germanwings-1144-yes-another-one/