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Airbus A330-200F Turkish Airlines Cargo 1/144


Timo

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Something a bit different – an Airbus A330-200F, the cargo version of the A330-200 passenger aircraft.  It’s quite rare to see an A330-200F as only 36 have been built to date.

 

A330F-TK%20Cargo_1.jpg

 

Apart from the main deck cargo door, the most visible difference from the passenger version is the distinctive hump under the nose.  The passenger variant has a marked nose down attitude while on the ground, so the freighter’s nose gear has been lowered into a fairing beneath the front fuselage to lift the nose so that the main cargo deck is level when on the ground to help loading/unloading.


A330F-TK%20Cargo_4.jpg

 

I’ve converted Revell's 1/144 scale Airbus A330-300 into an A330-200F. This is quite a straightforward conversion – the front and rear fuselage shortened, all windows filled, together with fitting a new shorter tail fin and RR Trent engines (both from Braz Models). 
The nose gear fairing was made by mounting the kit’s nose gear bay in the lower position and sculpting the fairing using Milliput. The open main deck cargo door and crew door are scratch built.
The Turkish Cargo decals were home made inkjet printed, with some of the kit’s original decals being used for the detail.

 

I thought that this cargo version would look far better with doors open, so I’ve included some ground crew and equipment:
> the cargo loader and pallets were scratch built
> the passenger steps are from a Dragon 747 kit
> the aircraft tug and towbar are from an Eastern Express aircraft tugs set
> the people and transit van are N-scale railway accessories

 

A few more pics below. Hope you like this conversion and cargo apron scene.
Thanks for looking
Tim

 

A330F-TK%20Cargo_2.jpg

 

A330F-TK%20Cargo_3.jpg

 

A330F-TK%20Cargo_5a.jpg

 

A330F-TK%20Cargo_5d.jpg

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Great job and dio. Really is. Always wondered why the bulge on the nose leg. Did you use the cut out fuselage part , the door, or make a new piece?

 

I was also surprised to learn that the  A330-200 gets a shorter Fin, if anything I would expect either the same size or bigger area with a shortened fuselage. 2 things learned today!

 

Thanks for showing and info, it's ace. Well done ! .................The pan/Apron is a bit clean though !

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Hi Tim,

This is great! Only this morning I was thinking we haven't seen many airliners recently.

I love an apron diorama and it's nice to see you've gone the extra mile and opened up the passenger/crew door as well.

I agree too it's a bit clean, but lots of nice detail.

I wonder who the foxy lady is at the top of the stairs?

Cheers,

Ian

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Thanks everyone for your great comments, much appreciated.

 

14 hours ago, bzn20 said:

Did you use the cut out fuselage part , the door, or make a new piece?

 

I used the cut out fuselage to make the cargo door and crew door. Unfortunately the largest (forward) fuselage cut was 21mm whereas the cargo door is 26mm wide, but nothing a bit of glue and sandpaper couldn't fix.

Thanks again

Tim

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Absolutely fantastic Tim.  Excellent and original conversion and superb display.  :clap2:

 

I've just been doing battle with a set of BraZ Trents.  I suspect I got a slightly duff casting and I had problems that I don't normally expect with BraZ products so it's encouraging to see how good the finished items look on  your model. 

 

Dave G

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Superb aircraft and diorama...brilliant.

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Hi Ray

Thanks for your great feedback.

 

On 2/24/2017 at 10:45 PM, TrojanThunder said:

I know someone does the nose gear hump as an aftermarket piece, I thought it was Braz as well. Your home made part looks great as it is Tim.

 

You're right. Contrails make a very expensive conversion kit, but I honestly didn't think it was worth it as the conversion is so straightforward. I crafted the hump using an Airbus drawing as a template (see below) and from pics on Airliners.net. I just scaled the drawing to the kit's fuselage size and used it to position the kit's nose gear box in the right place (on the blue lines). Add some Milliput, job done and a small fortune saved.

Thanks again

Tim

 

A330F-Hump.jpg

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