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Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 200, with 26 Decals 'Gulf Air' .


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Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 200, with 26 Decals 'Gulf Air' .

1:144 Eastern Express, sold by 26 Models with their decals.

 

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The Lockheed Tristar was one of the first generation of widebody airliners, designed in the 1960's and entering service in the 1972, few, if any are still flying today. Like the DC-10 it featured a centre engine mounted in the tail. With the development of more powerful and reliable engines, this configuration is no longer seen on aircraft of similar size.

 

The Gulf Air scheme from the Tristar era is one of the most attractive around, so when I saw that 26 Models were offering their own boxing of the Eastern Express kit along with a set of their own decals, I just had to have one. The price was very good too, so I hope Ray reissues it sometime soon.

 

The kit itself is pretty good. Other forums have suggested it is based on the long unavailable Otaki kit, but not having an Otaki for comparison, I couldn't say. The fuselage halves are in 2 parts, but the fit of the tail section to the main body is exceptional if not perfect. It really is hard to tell that the tail/centre engine is joined on. The rest of the kit fits pretty well too, unlike in comments made on this forum about the Eastern Express MD-11.  I have not started my MD-11, but guys building the it have had fit issues, so it is worth pointing out here that the Tristar is a good 'un. There are a couple of improvements that can be made, pointed out at the end of this post. Two versions of the livery are offered on the 26 sheet, with minor variations in the tiles/font used for the 'Gulf Air' and 'Golden Falcon' scripts. Some aircraft had overall white fuselages (on delivery I think) and later they appeared with a bare metal strip along the underside. I did mine as A40-TZ as there is a good photo of it on airliners.net showing the full white fuselage.

 

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'With something else', an A330-200, showing how big twin engined airliners have got!

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A couple of things are worth doing. The centre engine is a bit 'see through' so I stuck a simple roll of 5 thou plasticard in to give the illusion of an intake. Fellow member Chris 'Stringbag' has artfull bent some copper plumbing pipe for his. I have a copy that I'll use on my next Tristar.

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The engine pylons are a bit strange where they should meet the hot section. There is a gap that I filled with plastic strip & milliput to blend them in.

t10.jpg

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

 

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32 minutes ago, Viking said:

The Gulf Air scheme from the Tristar era is one of the most attractive around

 

Amen to that, and you've done them justice !

 

:thumbsup2::thumbsup2:

 

Lovely stuff !

 

I've got Gulf Air markings for the VC10 and 737 and now I'm wishing I had the Tristar markings too.

 

mike

 

P.S. tell Chris to stop messing about with copper tube and build something !  :D

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A wonderful build there John.

As being a huge fan of the TriStar,its wonderful to see one appear here on FB and done in such great quality,I have to give full marks all around:mike:

Good to hear (and see) that the EE TriStar is a good kit.

I have a couple of them in my stash,along with 2 Otaki kits.I guess I should start with those soon...but my production line is just too crowded at the moment...

 

Something about the EE TriStar in comparison with the Otaki kit;

 

It seems that Eastern Express was able to get somehow the molds or have created new ones.

Its preety much identical to the Otaki kit,so its of course a very  accurate recreation of the real thing.

Except for the 4-part fuselage (Otaki has 2 halves) and the correct size for the front gear doors (Otaki has molded them in one piece instead of the smaller and the larger doors individually) the rest of the kit is an exact replica of the Otaki kit.

 

Recently I saw that EE released an Eastern Airlines kit of the TriStar which said it has updated engines.If so,we could finally see the later,shorter, exhausts on the engines.

But I can't yet confirm if thats really the case.

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Fantastic job John.  Well done as always.  :clap2:

 

Alex just beat me to it but the EE kit is very closely related to the Otaki one.  I had an Otaki kit in my stash and since I'm a builder rather than a collector I was going to start it "one day".  As soon as I heard about the EE kit I put the Otaki one on eBay and realised enough to buy three EEs!  Obviously I haven't compared the kits side by side but apart from the split fuselage there is very little difference between them.  I knocked one up quickly to replace my old Welsh Court Line model (it's a long story) and like you I found it a pretty decent build. 

 

You must have modified the engines since the kit ones represent the very early standard.  As Alex says EE are supposed to be re-issuing the kit with the later engines but I've got two with the original engines (LTU and Cathay Pacific are planned) and I'd be interested to know what you did.

 

Cheers

 

Dave G

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John, this is beautiful! Flawlessly finished as usual and an outstanding nmf especially on the engines. Which paint did you use for it?

I've got this kit and decals too, it's on my ever lengthening to do list along with Saudia, Air Canada and Cathay Pacific. It's good to hear it goes together well.

It's interesting to notice the airliners.net image shows different engines on the same aircraft, the starboard engine has the short afterbody. Did you modify the kit engines at all?

Cheers,

Ian

 

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That is a complete & utter stunner John, really gorgeous finish! I have Ray's BA boxing of the kit & hope it turns out somewhere near as nice. But of course it can't, as the BA scheme isn't a patch on that lovely Gulf Air one - dunno why I didn't choose to buy that one...!! :banghead:

 

Cracking job!!

 

Keith

 

PS, wouldn't Chris' bit of plumbing in the intake make it a bit of a tail sitter?! :)

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5 hours ago, mitchem said:

I've got Gulf Air markings for the VC10 and 737 and now I'm wishing I had the Tristar markings too.

mike

P.S. tell Chris to stop messing about with copper tube and build something !  :D

I was going to offer you my spare set of Gulf Air decals and a copy of the intake ducts but you can go and whistle now.  :tease:

 

23 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

PS, wouldn't Chris' bit of plumbing in the intake make it a bit of a tail sitter?! :)

Done some for the wing mounted engines as well so that cancels out the tail duct.  More than happy to send you some. In fact, you can have two sets seeing as Mike won't be getting any. :smirk:

 

I'm well on the way with mine too as it happens and I was going to say something nice about John's model but seeing as how he's completed it before me he can sod off too. :rofl:

Chris.

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9 hours ago, stringbag said:

I was going to offer you my spare set of Gulf Air decals and a copy of the intake ducts but you can go and whistle now.  :tease:

 

Crikey Chris. I think it was only last week that I was telling Keefr how generous you'd been with an Airfix 737, so I tell you what. Throw a Tristar kit into the bundle and I'll take you up on your very kind offer. :D

 

mike

 

P.S. Just so we don't go off topic, let me just say you've done a smashing job on the Tristar John.

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Graeme H said:

 

What is this Britmodeller webspace of which you speak?

 

John is our WWI aircraft and occasional civvie reviewer, and so far has only used the BM webspace for his review pics, as he didn't know he had a staff folder.  Now he does, he's posting his build photos in there so he doesn't have to rely on a hosting company. :) It's not something we can afford to do for everyone though, I'm afraid :(

 

The upside for everyone else is that his pics should always remain visible, so you can marvel at his builds in the future. :yes:

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10 hours ago, Mike said:

 

John is our WWI aircraft and occasional civvie reviewer, and so far has only used the BM webspace for his review pics, as he didn't know he had a staff folder.  Now he does, he's posting his build photos in there so he doesn't have to rely on a hosting company. :) It's not something we can afford to do for everyone though, I'm afraid :(

 

The upside for everyone else is that his pics should always remain visible, so you can marvel at his builds in the future. :yes:

 

OK, got it, and fully understand, and great that his photos will always remain :yes:

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13 hours ago, mitchem said:

 

Crikey Chris. I think it was only last week that I was telling Keefr how generous you'd been with an Airfix 737, so I tell you what. Throw a Tristar kit into the bundle and I'll take you up on your very kind offer. :D

mike

P.S. Just so we don't go off topic, let me just say you've done a smashing job on the Tristar John.

 

Not a problem at all Mike as long as you don't mind the Hasegawa kit in 1/200 scale. The decals are Microscale in 1/144 scale however.

To save side lining John's thread, drop me a line if you want them.

 

Chris.

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Beautiful job John, always thought the Tristar a good looking aircraft. I well remember trips to the viewing area at Luton watching the Court Lines beasts doing their thing back in the early seventies.... (also as air cadets we were given a tour of G-BAAB whilst performing full systems checks under maintenance at LTN) 

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My first sight of a Tristar was when N305EA carried out a sales tour in 1972. It was painted in a partial Eastern Airlines/BEA scheme. It's areal pity we never got to see genuine liveried BEA Tristars. By the time they were delivered, BEA had gone and they only operated in BA colours.

 

Luckilly, 2-6 do the hybrid Eastern/BEA aircraft and if and when I do get around to building a Tristar that is the scheme i will do it in.

 

In fact, we are coming up on the 45th anniversary of me seeing N305EA. It was on 21 August 1972 and the aircraft was on long finals to the old Runway 24 at Dublin. I spotted it coming in as I lived along the coast about six miles from the airport. At first I thought it was a BEA Trident but then realised it was a Tristar.

Edited by Eric Mc
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