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Something I have been hiding in amongst all the other builds I am working on is this beautiful old Hasegawa 1/200 original Love Liner200 series McDonnell DC-10-30. At the time of release and despite the 1/200 scale, I felt this to be above and beyond the accuracy of both Revell and Airfix's 1/144 DC-10 kits, and to date, I still do however Welsh Models and Authentic Airliners DC-10s have both far outranked the likes of Revell and Airfix. This particular kit is one of 10 Hasegawa DC-10's I have in my stash, one of which was purchased part (and very badly) built which makes it a spares kit in case any of my stash turn out to be missing parts from storage and their previous owners. Starting life as an Alitalia DC10, I am building this as in a 'What-If' Livery and are using the assembled tail fin and centre engine assembly from the model I have that was supplied already part built, as a guideline for a new tail plane livery. I was also glad it was supplied part built as it immediately highlighted the centre engine and tail fin interior crusty looks which needed attention. I've purchased 3 sets of Nazca Decals detailing sets for some of these stashed DC-10's of mine and will be using one set on this along with the collection of bits I have in mind for the 'What-If' finished livery. So if you are a DC10, tri-jet or 70's widebody civil fan, sit back and enjoy please... The picture below starts to highlight the issue with the tail fin and centre engine as 2 parts prior to assembly - the insides of the tail fin are hollow and the M & F joint lugs will all become very visible when joined. Using the parts from the half assembled spares kit of the same, I took these photos to show what the centre engine would have looked like without any attention - the hollow tail fin and lugs very much visible even in 1/200 scale. So with 2 options to follow i.e. fill the tail fin hollows and remove the M&F join lugs before assembly, or fit an infill skirt, I chose the latter. Inserting the infill tube also left the engine intake with a nice and smooth inner surface as the kits engine interior was horrific. Using some Evergreen 0.5 inch tube, an inner sleeve was made easily, snug and looks great. I was not sure if the extra tubing might make this a tail-sitter so I popped a couple of blobs of lead up front as a make-safe I know its lazy using corroguard decals but it is also a challenge getting them in place and flat so I prefer to have a bash if I have the correct decals in stock I am actually one main wheel short now as I swallowed one by accident while eating tic-tacs from the work bench at the same time as un-masking these - my hands got out of sink So that's where it is. With the BA Negus 737 and TU144 both on the go at the same time, I am unsure how soon this will progress but I really love the kit - just as much as that Hasegawa L1011 I completed a week or so back. Thanks for looking in. John

Hasegawa pretty much released this little gemstone of a tiddler at the same time that British Airways retired their Trident fleet and took delivery of their first 737-236. The kit carries the same registration as BA's first (G-BGDA) which was delivered by Boeing in December 1981. That makes the kit 38 years old and like most of that age, the decals have had to be re-lacquered. The port side of the fuselage had lost its shape in storage and what looks a simple task, proved very difficult to join and make into a decent continuous profiled tube. Having just completed my 1/200 Hasegawa Negus L1011, I felt it an appropriate time to get this other Negus livery kit put together. That's as far as I have got for the moment. This kit make the Airfix 1/72 BE2 kit look big !