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Boeing 720 - Aer Lingus. 1/144 Roden The Boeing 720 was a development of the 707-120, with a the fuselage reduced by 8ft but with the same wingspan and structural weight changes to make it lighter. Other changes to the wing reduced take of and landing speeds, the intention being to create a jet airliner that could operate from smaller airfields than its bigger brothers. In this is was moderately successful, but ultimately it was another Boeing design, the 727 that came a few years later and really dominated in this area. The Roden kit has been around for a while now, and is very nice indeed. However the 720 kit suffers from JT3C engines that noticeably too large by about 25%, (The 720B kit does not shave this problems as the JT3D engines in that release of the kit, with Pan Am markings is ok). Welsh models sell a set of 4 corrected JT3C's that can be used on this kit, as I have done here and they greatly improve things. Decals are from www.classic-airlines.com and they fit beautifully, but being laser printed you need to cut each part from the sheet. Special thanks are to Mike @bootneck for kindly donating this kit! Just had to park my S&M models Viscount next to it! Thanks for looking, John

Aer Lingus Boeing 737 Authentic Airliners 1:144 This is the Authentic Airliners all resin kit, the most accurate Boeing 737 in any scale. They are pricey kits and I have long wamted to try one, and secured this one via e-Bay for a fair price. There are few parts, all beautifully cast and a small fret of photo etch to go with it. There were no instructions, which was not a problem for the main assembly, but left me wondering where a few of the etched parts were meant to go. This was an early release with a separate clear casting for the cockpit much like the Daco and Minicraft 737's have. Current kits are all-resin fuselages without the clear part, which I think is a better idea. 'With something else' - These 2 could frequently be seen parked near each other at airports in the early 70's. (Welsh Models Vac BEA 1-11 500) This project did not run smoothly, every now and then I seem to get a 'jinxed' build, and this was certainly one of them! It is a beautiful kit and well worth getting, just try to avoid the errors I made along the way! Troubles I had; Mixed my own Coroguard for the wings, and it looked too dark. Remasked, resprayed with lightened mix. Cockpit insert was fine and blended in well, fuselege sprayed with Appliance white. After a couple of weeks the join across the top of the fuselage began to show as a 'ghost'. Re-Milliputted it, blended it back in, reprimed, resprayed, remasked and redid the grey on the fuselage. The Appliance white on the fuselage then developed a 'micro-crazed' affect where I had re-filled the cockpit join. Happily this was solved with micromesh polishing cloths. I did not get the undercarriage right. the main legs were too 'stilty'. Cut them off, shortened and re-fixed them. Decals went wrong, I had to strip them off and buy another set. After the first attempt something did not look right. I realised that the cheat line was too high. The cabin windows needed to be lower, and the cheatline curve upwards to the cockpit window. The white paint under the green cheatline should be half the width of the cheatline itself. I had to strip it all off, and order a new set of decals. On the second attempt, I lined up the cheatline with the white underneath it, and curved the front 3cm or so up to the cockpit windows. It is a subtle change but makes a huge difference. A picture speaks a thousand words. Upper - first wrong attempt. Lower - second correct attempt. Another little 'gotcha' I noticed is that one of the Irish flags is upside down on the decal sheet. Simply cut if from the 'Aer Lingus Irish International' titles and rotate it 180 degrees, the green portion of the flag is always on the left. Top one is ok, lower one needs correcting; Well there were times when I nearly gave up on this one, but I am glad I persevered. It is a nice kit and a lovely looking livery, so don't be put off by my errors. I've now got an Authentic Airliners Boeing 707 to have a go at! Thanks for looking John