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Zvezda is to release in 2024 a new tool 1/144th Airbus A-330-300 - kit ref. 7044 Source: https://vk.com/zvezdamodels?w=wall-29859496_2798054 V.P.

Welsh Models has just released a 1/72nd Airbus A320-251 neo kit in British livery - ref. MJA 72-22 Sources: http://www.welshmodels.co.uk/mja72-22.html https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100045734448348 V.P.

Continuing the lockdown builds with the fresh Zvezda kit of the A350-1000. I'm aware that Aeroflot has (and only will have) 350-900 and I initially planned a conversion, but it turned to be way too complicated than just shorting down the fuselage so I went with a kind of 'what if' Aeroflot 350-1000. Pas decals livery fitted fine but the livery turned out to be not so simple as I expected. I had to copy the decals for the tailcone masking of grey/blue border (second time lucky). The kit fits very well except for the cockpit windshield which fits horribly wrong. Probably should have gone for the decal one. Gone through every airliner modeller's trial and error of masking the windows with a silicone masking liquid ended up quite bad. Never again. Other than that it's an enjoyable build, highly recommended. *THAT* winglet two of my last build together, as a random coincidence they're exactly the same length 1/144 and just 40 cm apart in real life Cheers, Steve

Titan Models is to release a 1/72nd Airbus A380 multimedia - vacuform & 3D printed parts - kit. 🤪 Source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=648077644426576&id=100076730395125 logiciel formule mathématique V.P.

9 or so months ago I started my first ever model build, this Zvezda A320NEO. It was supposed to be an easyJet aircraft (I started a build thread but it tapered off, will do better next time) but I wasn’t happy with the livery as I applied it so I left it on the bench for some months as I just wasn’t happy building something that wasn’t as good as it could be. Life then got in the way but recently I had some spare time so I decided to switch tact hoping to build my skills and come back to the easyJet livery. I decided to complete it in ITA Airways livery as it’s a lovely shade of blue and wow, it was worth the change! Only change from an easyJet aircraft is the engines are PW1100G instead of CFM LEAP. I’ve learned so much during the build about how I would improve it and it’s an OOB build with only photo realistic windows from Authenic Airliners as a modification. I would love to hear your thoughts, I know there are some areas the camera pics up that I could improve on (and the antenna should be white but I’ve been burned with paint reactions throughout the build so they can stay blue for now!) but overall, for a first go, I’m very happy.

Brussels Airlines introduced around half a dozen special liveries on their A320 fleet,all representing Belgium arts. In this case the Smurfs. I assume everybody remembers the cartoons with those blue dwarfs and their enemy Gargamel... PAS decals offers almost all of those liveries,but I guess some of them are just too difficult to reproduce in decal and kit form. The smurf design has its fair share of difficulties as well but it can be done. The decals are very nicely printed and of excellent quality. The most tricky part is the paint and masking job. Lots of photo reference was needed and I also made a copy of the decals that went over the windows to line out the demarcation between the blue and white. For the blue I used Revell blue 52 which I found a good match. The fading black to blue on the fin was achieved with a piece of paper holding in front of the blue.A few trials were needed to get it right. Its a funny livery and a real eye catcher in my cabinet. Thanks for looking Alex

On to the next one. I did this one parallel to the Icelandair: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235120614-zvezda-b737-8-max-icelandair-new-colours-1144/ I am personally a huge fan of the new Condor livery ever since I first saw it. I had in my mind of doing a 321 but could not really decide whether to do the blue, the red or the green. I had a slight preference for the green though, as I hadn’t painted any plane in that colour before. Nevertheless we were about to fly to Madeira with a Condor A321 in September, so I said to myself if it will be any of the new coloured ones I will do the one that flew us there.. so in fact the green version turned up for the flight and then the decision was easily made. Some detail shots I could make there were also really useful. Masking this one is obviously quite an effort. I cut some 1,14 cm wide vinyl tape which at least could be used for all the straight sections, the front, the tail and the part under the wings has to be done manually and of course it takes a lot of precise measurements, otherwise the stripes in the back are not where they are supposed to be. Pretty glad it turned out pretty well. Decals are from Nazca and are not great with the usual inaccuracies that one has to expect from that seller – unfortunately there were (and still are) no alternatives. First they are nowhere near opaque, the doors are even with two decals above each other not fully white and again if I hadn’t use double decals the part of the Condor titles that is on white ground was grey. Then quite some spacing is inaccurate, the registration is too wide and in a different font. But as it has quite some space between the letters, if one is aware of that one could cut the letters a bit and make it less wide. The tail decal is also slightly too large, so one has to be super careful that the white stripe on the tail is large enough for it. Window decals are of course from Authentic Airliners, I personally would never use those weird looking Nazca ones – both cockpit and passenger windows have an inaccurate shape and look weird overall. All detail decals are from a Revell / Daco A321 neo sheet. But in the end when using double decals and different windows one can get a decent result that has to be said – to be fair. A good friend of mine is making a fantastic looking red striped A321 at the moment. Otherwise yes it was an effort with all the masking, but I still have in my head of making a 753 at some point either with red (one is being painted in reality at the moment) or blue stripes. The green colour is Tamiya X28 “Park Green” mixed with some drops of blue, the rest is basic Mr Hobby / Tamiya stuff. Winglets are painted as well, again with the help of vinyl stripes cut with a plotter. Here are some photos Thanks for looking / appreciate any feedback / comments Julien

Air-Graphics new project for 2025 us a 1/72nd Airbus H150B resin kit - ref. ARK-04 Source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?id=100059604559743&story_fbid=898749368788540 "This is planned for November release during Scale Modelworld 2024. Complete resin kit. This will also form the basis of the planned H160M ordered for the French Army which is planned for 2025." V.P.

JetBlue Airbus A321neo - 1/144 Zvezda Decals by Authentic Airliners This one came about because Viking daughter travelled from Gatwick to New York in September, and noting the reg. on flightradar as it crossed the Atlantic I immediately wondered if anyone did a decal sheet. A quick google brought up the Authentic Airliners 'Streamers' sheet for the very aircraft I wanted, so a quick order went in and a week later I had them in my hands. The decals were laser printed on constant carrier film, and that large tail decal was amazing. both sides fitted with absolute precision and met at the leading edge perfectly. You need to check your aircraft on Airliners.net though, as mine had a couple of variations in the window layouts from what was on the sheet. (there were about 4 blanked out, 1 each side in front of the overwing exits and the last one at the back each side - simple enough to cut them off before application and replace with blank outlines). The kit is Zvezda, again an almost faultless kit, but with a fiddly option to have slats & flaps deployed. I did mine all retracted as it was less trouble. As it has a complete flight deck included, I blagged the CRM 'Civil Airliner Pilots with Hat' set that boss man Mike had received for review, in order to try them out. They are great! These are the CRM figures painted up, 2 of which I installed in the cockpit. The poses are great, and really natural. The 2 sets are mirror images of each other. I used artistic license to paint the seats light turquoise in order to make them stand out a bit better against the grey of the cockpit, withe pilots sitting on them. They are hard to photograph, but much easier to see in real life. Thanks for looking, John

Eastern Express is working on a 1/144th Airbus A300B kit - ref. 144??? Sources: http://www.pas-decals.ru/forum/novosti/1078-novinki-vostochnyj-ekspress?start=783#41905 http://www.pas-decals.ru/forum/novosti/1078-novinki-vostochnyj-ekspress?start=810#41984 First parts pics V.P.

The Airbus A320neo family is a development of the popular A320 family of narrow-body airliners produced by Airbus. The A320neo family is based on the previous A319, A320 and A321. Re-engined with CFM LEAP-1A or Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines and fitted with sharklets as standard, it is 15% to 20% more fuel efficient than the A320ceo family. The airline depicted is Cebu Pacific Air, founded in 1988, and the largest low-cost airline of the Philippines and the largest airline of the country based on passenger numbers. Operating out of Cebu and Manila as main hubs, the A320 family makes up the majority of its fleet, the A320neo making up 9 of its fleet of 48. It was an ambitious paint scheme for sure, but one I've always wanted to do. This airline is a big part of my and any travelling Filipino's memories, after all. The project ultimately got bogged down quite a bit, but I will elaborate on this later in the post. The aircraft depicted is RP-C3281, a Cebu Pac A320neo that I took on a domestic flight to Dumaguete and then saw again in Caticlan Airport. Thankfully, as an owner of a camera taking reference pics proved to be very useful in the build. Here's the A/C itself as I photographed it in Caticlan Airport. I also compiled some of the timelapse footage I got of the build and put it into a sort of "reel" - First time trying this and I didn't want to spend too much time on it, so the editing and cinematography might not be the greatest. I chose to spoiler tag the rest of it as they do have quite a few images and are talked about in length Review - The kit itself is pretty good for an airliner offering, and it's no secret that Zvezda makes some of the best airliner kits out there. Personally I'm content with how the build went together, I don't have any major gripes or issues with the kit and it's still very good. However, there are a few nitpicks worth talking about - Masking Process - The masking was one of the most challenging parts of the build, and the sweeping curves all around the A320 were certainly very hard to replicate. I've been asked quite a bit about this process when posting about it, so here's a thread explaining the process. Decals: Painted with a combination of Armored Komodo lacquers and Tamiya acrylics. Gloss is GX112. Now, to summarize the build experience as a whole... This build has honestly brought me to the edge of quitting modelling more than any other build in the past, partly due to mistakes as a result of my own negligence, and partly due to luck so bad it was comedic, and certainly much worse than I've encountered on any other build. Issues ranged from paint peel on the white paint that then wouldn't feather when sanded, to incorrect hues on the first rounds of paint resulting in multiple rounds of masking and painting the (very difficult!) Cebu Pacific logo on the rear fuselage. For some reason, the white paint I used then started to yellow over time, which I had to sand back while the decals were already on - look closely around the windows where I had to avoid taking a sanding stick to it and you'll see some of the yellowing still there - Afterwards, seams reopened which resulted in having to repaint over the already peeling and yellowing white paint. The painting of the engines then went awry as the coverage of the white wouldn't lay down correctly, having to strip and repaint each one around 4-6 times each. The paint I used on the wings for some reason lightened under one of the registration decals as well, which meant I had to repaint a good fourth of the starboard wing to correct it. I had to speed up the final phase of the build as I wanted to make it in time for the local Nationals, which ultimately resulted in lots of compromises of the build - it was in the IPMS hall with the engine exhaust cones missing, left at home because they were still drying! Needless to say, it didn't really win any prizes but did catch the attention of quite a lot of people, as the only airliner build put in the competition, and with the vibrant and recognizable colors of Cebu Pacific no less. It then got damaged on the drive home, with the engines and landing gear breaking off and another fuselage seam reopening. Ultimately, the cowling ring and one of the nose landing gear wheels went missing, so I had to 3D print resin substitutes, which then made it onto the build in time to be make it my last completed build for 2022. Any modeler with a good eye can spot quite a few mistakes in the build's craftsmanship, many of which I honestly no longer had the energy or time to correct. In the end, I'm just happy to have gotten this project through the finish line. Thanks for reading, especially if you've gotten this far through the wall of text!

The Air Belgium livery is another of my favourites. Authentic Airliners offers the decal set for it,so I went for it. In 2018 I saw one of those on approach to Rhodes airport and I knew I had to add this to my collection. The paintjob is straight forward,all white fuselage,painted with Gunze white primer 1500. The black stripe had to be painted,masks for it are provided with the decals. The fit of the decals is a bit iffy,I guess they are designed for the AA resin kit,which showed some errors probably on the Revell kit. So a few adjustments had to be done to get everything in place as good as possible. The build of the kit went fairly well,just the usual conversions on the engines had to be done. Thanks for looking Alex

This is my first build of the new Revell A320NEO kit. To my surprise,the A320NEO is not in the same league qualitywise as their A321NEO kit. The fitting is not as good and the kit already showed some flash and excess plastic. The decals for the colourful Air Seychelles livery are from PAS decals and are of great quality. All other decals are from the kit. The fuselage was painted with Gunze white primer 1500,the rest are Testors,Revell and Gunze paints. One of my next NEOs will be a Zvezda kit,hopefully a better quality than the Revell offering. Thanks for looking Alex

Revell's first release of their A330-300 was back in 1993 with the Demonstrator markings. I still had them in my stash since childhood.As I had 4 A330s ,I decided to use that set on one of them since they still looked usable. I should be proven otherwise.... They were very stiff,brittle and showed no response to any decal softener.Applying them was a real pain in the a... After clear coating them 3 times with Future,they finally stayed on the model but I was not too happy with the result. In the end,I painstakingly hand brushed the blue on each decal with Revell 54 blue to enhance the shine and overall quality,then clear coated it again with Future. It looks a lot better than before. The white is Gunze primer 1500. Thanks for looking Alex

Another conversion,this time a A330-200 in LTU livery. I had the LTU issue of the Revell A330-300 in my stash but I wanted to do the -200. Some years ago I bought the BRAZ resin fin and tailplanes for the A330-200 so while I was already hacking up the A340 I made the conversion on the A330 as well. Same procedure as with the A340,both types have the same measurements. Paints are Gunze white primer 1500 for the white parts and Revell red 31. Instead of using the red stripe provided on the Revell decal,I airbrushed everything,which gives better results and saves cutting down the decals.Only the letters and logos,doors and letters for the registration are from the decal set.The rest comes from the spares box and other Airbus A330/340 kits. While researching the type,I came across a pic with one of those Airbuses having a white radome.Hence I took that up as well. Thanks for looking Alex

A bit later than expected,more of my finished builds since 2022. I had a rather busy schedule in modelling,so a large number of kits got finished.Most of them are now ready to be shown here,some others are still missing a few parts. On we go with the Revell A340. Back in november 1992,Lufthansa presented their first A340-200 in Zurich. I was on there and also was able to take some pics. My camera back then was not the best,I was still a kid,so my parents didnt spend too much on a camera.Hence the pics are not that good,but I still have them. I played with the idea for a long time,shortening the Revell A340-300 down to a -200 and build the first LH A340. The decal set from Revell even has the correct registration for the type. Lack of skill stopped me from doing such a task for many years but last year I thought I was ready for it and gave it a go. While at it,I also took the opportunity to improve the kits engines by adding the vortex generators and rework the inner engines,so they sit higher.The engine mounts of the kit are too large,so if not corrected,they will hang too low. Shortening the fuselage was not that difficult.Some diagrams and pictures found on the www ,showed where to make the cuts. After all was set and ready,reassambly began. Some filling and sanding was required at the fuselage but nothing too distracting,so the paintjob could start. Painted with Gunze and Revell enamels. The grey for the belly and the wings is a mix of Revell 374 with a few drops Revell white 04. The white for the fuselage is Gunze Primer 1500,clear coated with Future. The decals come from the original Lufthansa boxing.Luckily I had a few decal sets ,so I could use bits and parts from the other sheets as one of them was quite yellow and brittle. Some details come from the spares box and other Revell A330/340 kits. It took 30+ years from the idea to the finished product,so I am very happy to finally have this Airbus in my collection. Thanks for looking Alex

To celebrate its 50th birthday,Lufthabsa painted one of their A321s in this very attractive retro livery. Revell was of course to the service and provided a reissue of their A321 kit with the retro decal set. They even served both modelling fractions,those who want window decals and those who like open windows,by providing 2 sets of cheatlines. I went for the open window version,I only had to use a decal for the cockpit as I cracked the clear part while installing it. The build is straight forward,everything fits nicely. For the paints,a mix of Revell enamels,Testors and Gunze was used. The underbelly is a mix of Revell aluminium with Revell grey 374. Its a bit tricky to get it right. Revell tells you to paint it entirely aluminium but as the Airbus is more compisite material than metal,its completely wrong. The decals fit very well,only around the nose a few touch ups are required. Another airliner with a special livery can ve added to the collection.😊 Thanks for looking Alex

This is the original Revell boxing with the colourful Aer Lingus decals. The kit is now quite hard to find and on some well known sites sold for astronomic prices. I had it in my stash for many years but cant remember where I got it from. As I went through my A330/A340 serial build,this was build simultaneously with the others. Despite its age,the kit is very nicely detailed and the decal set is superb as well. Lots of details and very nicely printed.If I remember correctly,it was done by NAZCA. The top of the fuselage was painted with Revell emerald green,unfortunately the pictures show it much darker as it really is. The white is my well proven Gunze primer 1500. Aer Lingus has/had obe of the most attractive liveries,so this is a nice addition to my Airbus fleet. Thanks for looking Alex

Another great release from Revell is the A321 in the special livery of Austrian Airlines,celebrating the 1000th anniversary of the Austrian republic in 1996. The A321 wears the faces of the most iconic persons of Austria from the past to present (1996) The kit is well known and needs no further introduction. The highlight of the kit is clearly the decal set,which is top quality and fits on the kit like a treat. Painting is straight forward,all white fuselage (Gunze primer 1500) The wings are painted with Testors aircraft grey mixed with white,corogard panels are Revell 374 grey mixed with a few drops aluminium. The cockpit window is a decal from a PAS decal set,the cabin windows and all the rest are from the kit. Thanks for looking Alex

Another one of Revell's "Special Liveries". The Wiener Philharmoniker A340-300. Its a real eye catcher and the kit was frequently reviewed upon its release but its hardly seen built. I wonder why... The most difficult part of the build is the paintjob,esp. the blue belly and the bright blue on the engines. To find the correct demarcation line on the belly is a bit iffy. The instructions are absolutely no help,so intense research on the net is required. The light blue for the engines need to be mixed. I used Revell white 04 and skyblue 52 . The belly blue needs to be mixed as well skyblue 52 with a few drops white 04,here one can use the decal set as a matching pattern. Once this is achieved,the most complicated part is done. The decals are superbly printed and fit wonderful. The only downside to them are that there are no windowholes or windows printed on. I decided to have clear windows,so after application and clear coating,every window was cut out with a new sharp blade.To find all of the windows was time consuming. Then from another decal set,the silver frames were applied and clear coated as,well. The end result is one of the most spectacular liveries ever worn by a A340. As with the other A340s,I also corrected and enhanced the engines. Thanks for looking Alex

So this one was a real struggle and the end result is not really what I hoped for. Managed to loose one of the winglets but found one in an unstarted A320 box. I messed up the markings on the horizontal stabilisers, putting the markings on the bottom side after painting and before mounting. Whilst trying to mount them I broke the locator tabs, both of them! Super glued them on and the right one managed to fall down at least 4 times. Paint was a bit messy, not sure why, maybe too much dust in my appartement... Decals from 26 Decals, lovely as usual but still I was able to screw some things up causing me to get a second set. Anyway, I mostly build aircraft I actually have seen/photographed and this one I saw early July in Funchal, Madeira and I made this photo: And then the finished model: Hope the next one on the bench comes out a bit better - Peter

Another one from my production line. Revell's 2013 re-release of their vintage 1993 A330 kit. It sat in my stash for the past 10 years before I finally got around building it. Qualitywise,its the same as the A340. Everything fits quite well and detail is nicely done. The highlight of this boxing is clearly the decal sheet,courtesy of NAZCA. There are countless detail markings that cover probably every detail of the original. The most tricky part to do was the masking/painting of the purple parts. The tail has to be painted as for the stripe,the violet part is on the decal. But matching the colors is very difficult,so I decided to paint on all purple parts. Revell gives a helping hand on the instruction sheet,although there are some serious errors in their measurements for the windowstripe. In the end I made a copy of the decal stripe and used it as a template. The purple paint is from Gunze Aqueous H39. It was the closest match I could find. Depending on the pictures on the net,the purple looks different from pic to pic.Some show a very faded out purple,others even a bit metallic. The rest is Gunze white primer for the white parts,Testors aircraft grey mixed with white for the wings and Revell 374 mixed with Revell aluminium 99. On a forum I once read that Revell has the wrong engines for the Thai version. Thai uses RollsRoyce engines on their A330s. I got a set of BRAZ RR engines,that were included on another A330 kit,that I got 2nd hand. Research on the net later showed unfortunately the opposite... Thais earlier batch of A330s from 1994 to 97 had PW engines as depicted in the Revell boxing. As Thai Airways has named all of tjeir aircrafts,I had to "cheat"a bit... The superb Authentic Airliners detail set came to the rescue. There are "open" door decals included. So I used them on both sides.As the doors swing open outside/forward,they hide the name on both sides,which saved me a lot of trouble.😊 Cheers

It has been quite a while sice I posted something. I had a busy time,and also the weather here was not the best to make pictures on the balcony. Modelling was very busy though and a lot of airliners got finished since last summer.Some had been pre-started and finally finished,others were built from scratch. So,here are the first of a larger batch of kits that I will post in the comming days. I had the rather crazy idea of building my 8 A330/A340 kits ,I had in my stash for some years,more or less simultaneously. Had I known what a task that would be beforehand,I would not have gotten me into this mega-project.🤪 For my A340s I decided to correct the inner engines as good as possible. Revell's A340 was first released in early 1991 and has a few accuracy issues as it seems based on earlier drawings. The most obvious are the engines.They miss the little fences and the inner engines hang low due to the too high engine mounts. The outer engines look fine though and compared with the real thing,the inner engines should be at the same hight as the outer ones. To correct this as good as possible,I cut off the mounts from the nacelles and shortened them about 1mm.Then I reattached them on the nacelles using liquid plasic and a bit of superglue. The inlet rings on all engines were recreated with pieces of plasticard ,to avoid a seam. The rest of the build was by the book. The kit is very nicely detailed,esp. the landing gear,which makes it a bit fiddly to install though. Paints used are Gunze white primer for the white parts,Revell red 31 ,Testors aircraft grey mixed with white for all the grey areas and Revell grey 374 mixed with a few drops Revell aluminium 99 for the inspar panels. The decals for the Edelweiss livery come from DRAW decal and are of great quality with a very thin carrierfilm.Application requires some attention. I chose HB-JMD because that was the Airbus I flew on in 2018 from Zurich to Ho Chi Minh City on my way to Manila. It was a very comfortable flight with a great service. Edelweiss is the charter subsidiary of Swiss and has 5 A340s in service,all former Swiss aircrafts. The A340 was delivered factory new in December 2003 and changed to Edelweiss in September 2018. I actually wanted to photograph the A340 on my regular "apron" but I must have misplaced it😳 now a piece of runway has to do for the moment... Cheers

Titan Model Kits is to release a 1/72nd Airbus A380 vacuform kit with 3D parts ! Source: https://www.facebook.com/TitanModelKits/posts/pfbid034AiNs8Mjt2o8mcRb3HLN7vXmfUMHDyK2aXZnpW6osRzsVsYpotFtEqAvPPepadJGl V.P.

In 2019 Zvezda is to release a 1/144th Airbus A350-1000 kit - ref. 7020 Source: Zvezda catalog 2019 V.P.