Revell A350-900 1/144 'Skyteam' Vietnam Airlines

[phil1]

Revell A350-900 1/144 'Skyteam' Vietnam Airlines

 

On first impressions I thought this was quite an ugly aircraft but having seen it recently at Miami airport in Qatar airways colours I was quite surprised to see how elegant an aircraft it actually is.  It's size is also quite deceiving especially in comparison to similar widebodies. 

 

Anyway I decided to buy the kit by Revell. It's a typical Revell kit, a lot cruder than zvezda with quite a lot of excess plastic clinging to numerous parts but nevertheless nicely detailed. One wing is warped which is nice so I've had to deal with that before i do anything by heating the plastic and laying some weight on it overnight.

 

The kit comes with Lufthansa colours which i noted that all Lufthansa a350s have a SATCOM (or wifi not sure) antenna but the kit does not come with one

 

Braz sell a few antenna's but knowing which one is a bit of a nightmare. Braz sell the 'SatCom CNA-2102 Antenna' for widebody airliners but it doesn't look right on reference shots of the A350.

 

Does anyone know which type of antenna the A350 uses?? (placed near the tail) the obvious choice would be to make one but I rather find out if Braz do one for the sake of perfection. Progress and pics to follow.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Can't t tell you which one Phil, I just scratch built the one for my Finnair A350.

[Scott Garard]

Phil,

 

It's a fairing for the satellite based Wi-Fi antennae array called Ku-Band.

 

Explanation and close-up photo with the fairing removed here (scroll down a bit) :  https://thepointsguy.com/2015/11/how-in-flight-wi-fi-works/

 

Scott.

[phil1]

10 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

Can't t tell you which one Phil, I just scratch built the one for my Finnair A350.

yeh I think I'm going to have to do the same. neither braz antennas available look the right shape

[phil1]

33 minutes ago, Scott Garard said:

Phil,

 

It's a fairing for the satellite based Wi-Fi antennae array called Ku-Band.

 

Explanation and close-up photo with the fairing removed here (scroll down a bit) :  https://thepointsguy.com/2015/11/how-in-flight-wi-fi-works/

 

Scott.

thanks scott that's great! gives me a much better idea of what shape is needed

 

Phil

[phil1]

 

i think this is a close up of the same ku-band housing - specifically on the a350

[Turbofan]

Hi Phil,

If it's the same as the ones fitted to Norwegian 737-800d then I made a mould for the one I fitted to my model 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235010170-1144-norwegian-boeing-737-800/&tab=comments#comment-2505708

If you think it's the same I can send you a copy.

Cheers,

Ian

[Terry1954]

Hi Phil,

 

Can't help with the arial question but looking forward to your build!

 

21 hours ago, phil1 said:

Does anyone know which type of antenna the A350 uses??

 

Hi Ian,

 

Just looked at your Norwegian 737-800. A most impressive build. I have one of these in the stash and I might just have to increase its place up the build schedule!

35 minutes ago, Turbofan said:

Hi Phil,

If it's the same as the ones fitted to Norwegian 737-800d then I made a mould for the one I fitted to my model 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235010170-1144-norwegian-boeing-737-800/&tab=comments#comment-2505708

If you think it's the same I can send you a copy.

Cheers,

Ian

 

Cheer

 

Terry

[phil1]

Edited June 12, 2018 by phil1
duplicate pic uploaded

[Azgaron]

Looking good!

 

Håkan

 

[phil1]

ok so I finally made a bit progress, decided to man up and make my own satcom antenna, it's probably not perfect but it'll do. made some measurements off my dreamliner model and just estimated where it should go by reference photos

 

 

 

The kit goes together quite well for a revell, nothing is actually glued in place here. One thing looking at the model like this is that it strikes you as quite an elegant aircraft and gives you know idea of its actual size. I still can't get away with the nose and the dreaded racoon mask once added.

 

 

 

The aircraft is nearly all metallic (skyteam livery) apart from the tail which is a dark navy blue. With a metallic body I'm going to first put down a matt black undercoat 

 

 

with a couple of coats of matt black I've smoothed the paintjob down using a very worn out sanding block, just so i don't take any paintwork off but have a very smooth undercoat and showing the detail on the fuselage (which you can't actually make out in the pic!)

 

 

The next stage includes spraying the whole plane in a dark blue gloss. The tail needs to be this colour and the metallic effect will work nearly just as good then if i used gloss black underneath. I will just cover up the tail and spray everything aluminium

 

I have 2 options Alclad Dull aluminium or polished aluminium. The polished aluminium is probably too reflective and is better suited to an old American Airlines/Jetstar/Jet2 paintjob. The dull aluminium is likely better. The good thing with this I've noticed is that it's possible to buff the dull aluminium with novus scratch remover without it taking layers away. The polished aluminium just vanishes when i use this product and even when contact is made with your finger tips, I'm not sure why this is but usually if I'm happy with it I've got to put a coat of varnish over it.

 

 

finish is patchy as I've run out of alclad - got some more on the way. will look great when I get to buff it up a bit. The surface feels a bit rough and will need smoothed out to get that nice metallic feel.

 

 

the wings are underway but i have a dilemma regarding the decals for Skyteam. There are ones available for an aircraft of this size. Heres the 777 decals. The problem with these is that the windows are blended in with the large skyteam fuselage image. The a350 has large windows and I'm unsure of their spacing so theres a chance the a350 windows (from authentic airliners) might not fit over precisely....covering the 777 windows on the draw decal

 

 

heres a 767-300 set which has that fuselage piece seperate, but will the 767 decals be too small for the a350???

 

 

looking to see if anyone else does skyteam decals for a widebody

 

[phil1]

start cracking on with this one again. Most of the paintjob is done apart from the wingtips (to match the colour of the tail) and the aluminium touches on the le flaps, tail and exhaust. 

I'm going to attempt to shine up the fuselage again as my first attempts removed too much of the alclad finish and i had to buy another 2 bottles of the stuff! it looks fine on the pictures but it still feels a bit rough, I want a nice smooth finish to catch a hint of reflectiveness on the main body of the plane.

 

happy that the wings still fit albeit not as well as before so I will need to remove some paint from the edges before settling on the fit. 

 

not looking forward to putting the engines together as they look pretty nasty and fragile. 

 

[phil1]

wingtips are now painted so all I need to do is buff the paintjob up for a factory fresh look. the decals are on their way from the US and I'm praying they are suitable (they are for air france 777 skyteam, obviously the a350 is a similar size. I went for that decal set as the windows did not carry on across the fuselage logo so i can apply my own 3d ones over the top (the a350 windows are further apart then any other airliner bar the 787 i believe) 

the 767 decals would have been to small for this aircraft.

 

 

 

progressed with the engines, they are made similar to zvezdas 787 engines and go together better than i thought. they feel i little bit flimsy as my preference is normally to get braz engines but no option this time.

the inner workings are done, i just need to spray the exterior with some delicate masking to make sure I don't undo any work. the front part fits on nicely and i should be able to spray it separately 

 

 

 

[phil1]

finally a bit of progress with this one - forgive the dodgy patch at the bottom of the tail where the blue has worn away, this didn't seem apparent when adding the decals - maybe decals should only be applied in proper light! I'll put that right when i get the chance

 

The skyteam titles are a little further down the fuselage than what i wanted, the reason being that part of the L2 door is embedded into the 'E'

 

 

 

I actually think the a350 looks much better without the racoon mask but some would say its the ugly nose that ruins it

 

 

I have one question to put out there......

 

what colour are the a350 wings? as they are composite a lot of people think they may be white like the dreamliner? also, I have seen some examples of models with the coroguard which I thought was not required?

 

cheers

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Phil,

 

The Boeing white wings and nacelles are that way as a drag reduction feature (the type of paint used), Airbus does not use this type of paint.

 

The wings are grey (Boeing Grey I would say), this image shows the grey compared to the normal fuselage Vietnam Airlines fuselage colour. It is not as apparent on the aircraft you are building but I think it is also grey on the wings, why would they change the wing colour for one aircraft?

 

As for corogard area on Airbus aircraft, and in particular the A350, this image show's none on one of their normal scheme aircraft, again why would they change it for one aircraft?

[phil1]

14 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

Phil,

 

The Boeing white wings and nacelles are that way as a drag reduction feature (the type of paint used), Airbus does not use this type of paint.

 

The wings are grey (Boeing Grey I would say), this image shows the grey compared to the normal fuselage Vietnam Airlines fuselage colour. It is not as apparent on the aircraft you are building but I think it is also grey on the wings, why would they change the wing colour for one aircraft?

 

As for corogard area on Airbus aircraft, and in particular the A350, this image show's none on one of their normal scheme aircraft, again why would they change it for one aircraft?

cheers ray, i didn't know that! i thought it was just a novelty thing introduced for aesthetics but I should have known theres usually a reason for everything. I've used revell 371 (satin) which seems perfect when you compare it with your reference photo

 

phil

[XV571]

Hi Phil,

Your A350 is looking really smart, The actual metallic finish on the real aircraft is actually a silver mica finish with a white undercoat but your approach looks spot-on. It's a scheme I'd really like to do one day, maybe not this A350 but one of the other Skyteam members' aircraft. I've seen Delta's 767-300 overhead quite a few times but there's other jets of theirs I'd like to do, so probably not that exact one.

 

On the wing colour I hope this isn't too late as I've been waiting for some definitive information, but I have to disagree with Ray on the wing colour; all production A350 wings are white, specifically a shade called by Airbus 'Matterhorn White' which is given the company colour code of M8002. It appears to be an off-white shade which is probably why there is a contrast between the airline livery and the wings which could explain it being interpreted from photos as the wings being a light grey. Incidentally the lower fuselage of the standard Air Vietnam livery in Ray's link is BAC7010 Ivory. There is absolutely definitely no corrogard on the A350 wing, in fact it is no longer used on any new Airbus deliveries having been replaced by a more environmentally finish called Aeroflex at least 5-8 years ago. For example all A380s use Aeroflex on the inspar area.

 

I too wondered if the A350 wings were grey but I've been fortunate to be able to view the original wing livery drawings and, recently, other documents which clearly state that the Wings, Pylons and Horizontal Stabilisers are non-customisable as part of the external livery and will only be offered in Matterhorn White. The change was introduced in an Airbus modification document titled "Modify The General Paint Scheme of External Surfaces From Light Grey to White" from MSN0006 (the first Qatar delivery). Also bear in mind that part of the certification process there are thermal property requirements for composite wings to be certified. As part of the testing and certification process it was found that although the grey wings installed on the early aircraft could achieve the minimum requirements, overall white significantly improved the thermal performance. As a result of this testing all A350 production aircraft now have white on both upper and lower surfaces and so the only A350s with light grey wings are the prototypes as depicted on the original Revell release instructions. These were painted BAC707 grey top and bottom with grey RAL 7004 Aeroflex inspar areas. The one exception was MSN005 (the carbon livery) which has white upper wings. No doubt the same would have applied to the Boeing 787 and I'm sure when the 777-9 is formally rolled out its wings will seen to be overall white too. I hope you can understand that unfortunately I'm not able to get copies or post any extracts from these documents since they are proprietary to Airbus and could probably result in some major grief for my sources.

 

I haven't yet been able to persuade someone to get hold of a sample of Matterhorn White for me but I'm thinking that maybe USAF SEA light grey 36622 could be a solution to get the required contrast with the 'purer' whites we as modellers typically use for the fuselage (think Appliance White). Mr Color also have an off-white #69 which could be another candidate. When I eventually get round to doing my Finnair jet I plan to see which one looks the best match against the RAL9001 they use for the fuselage and winglets.

 

For comparison between the A350 and 787 here's two pictures I took this afternoon:

 

Lufthansa A350-941 D-AIXI in their new colours:

 

 

Air France 787-9 F-HRBC;

 

 

Sorry to bombard you with so much information but I hope this helps. I'm sure whatever you decide to do with the wings, the finished kit will look great.

 

Jonathan

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Skodadriver]

On 10/22/2018 at 10:05 PM, XV571 said:

I haven't yet been able to persuade someone to get hold of a sample of Matterhorn White for me but I'm thinking that maybe USAF SEA light grey 36622 could be a solution to get the required contrast with the 'purer' whites we as modellers typically use for the fuselage (think Appliance White). Mr Color also have an off-white #69 which could be another candidate. When I eventually get round to doing my Finnair jet I plan to see which one looks the best match against the RAL9001 they use for the fuselage and winglets.

You might want to have a look at Mr Color #107 "Character White".  Following a trial spray of both colours over Halfords white primer #69 "Off White" is still too grey, at least to my eyes.  I am making leisurely progress with an A350 just now and I'm planning to use #107 when I get to the painting stage unless anybody comes up with a better alternative in the meantime.

 

(Apologies to phil1 for the thread drift)

[XV571]

On 12/8/2018 at 7:04 PM, Skodadriver said:

You might want to have a look at Mr Color #107 "Character White".  Following a trial spray of both colours over Halfords white primer #69 "Off White" is still too grey, at least to my eyes.  I am making leisurely progress with an A350 just now and I'm planning to use #107 when I get to the painting stage unless anybody comes up with a better alternative in the meantime.

 

(Apologies to phil1 for the thread drift)

 

Thanks for the suggestion Dave, I'll have a look at the  #107. I've sprayed some #311 FS36622 on one wing and I agree it's definitely far too grey. I'm also going to try some #316 FS17875 - at the very least it won't go to waste, I've got several F-4s that'll need it 🙂 .

 

 

Jonathan (with further apologies to Phil)

[phil1]

I've neglected this project for months but luckily I got some time off work to catch up. I did the wings a while back but a recently give the leading edge a nice few coats of xtreme metal chrome (i have no polished aluminium, but this is close enough). I'm ready to ditch alclad metals as a finished coat can rub off easily with your finger where as xtreme metals can even withstand some buffing with similar quality finishes. 

Revell 371 grey satin looks perfect for the wings as its a very light grey 

 

 

 

the only issue i have with the engines is a issue that I find a lot with regard to revell kits have, the indentation marking the forward part of the engine including the lip probably shouldn't be there but it's not obvious that it needs blended into the rest of the engine. There is also parts of the belly fairing where panels look separate but in fact the gaps don't exist 

 

 

probably the best engine fit I've known. The wings are a beautiful fit too, i could have probably got away with not gluing them 

 

 

this model is a whole combination of different decals for different airliners! the doors (white ones on top of actual a350 doors) are from the dreamliner. The Skyteam decals are for the 777. The pilot escape hatch is from the tristar I think!....god knows which one.  

 

 

This is before i cleaned up the fuselage as it had just been neglected for months and built up dust. I actually had vietnam airlines titles in my stash but then I realized that they are actually blue not white on the skyteam livery. these are not available so I'm going to attempt to print them off my own printer on decal paper, I've done it before with half decent results with a bit work on photoshop. 

 

 

The a359 and what its succeeded, the a340-600 (or is it the a35X that has succeeded it??) The a340-600 is long but the a359 really holds it own next to it. 

 

 

 

another thing I regretted was adding the silver window outlines as it looks like it has shrunk their size, it seemed like a good idea on top of the giant blue skyteam logo at the rear to make the windows stand out but I wish I'd left them off the rest of the fuselage

 

 

next i need to 

1. finish off the horizontal stabs and put them in place

2. add all antennas 

3. print out and add vietnam titles

4. add all reg's and vietnam flags plus various minor decals

 

[pinky coffeeboat]

Very nice buld Phil, I've missed the start of this but had an enjoyable read through it. Loads of great info too,

 

I'm in the same boat as you regarding that nose. I still don't like it. I think it looks awful, the 787 looks much better. 

 I've built one Revell A350 (Finnair) but have no room to display it so it sits on the shelf, wingless and forlorn looking. But that still hasn't stopped me buying more aftermarket decal sheets for the A350.

 

 

Jeff

[phil1]

6 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

Very nice buld Phil, I've missed the start of this but had an enjoyable read through it. Loads of great info too,

 

I'm in the same boat as you regarding that nose. I still don't like it. I think it looks awful, the 787 looks much better. 

 I've built one Revell A350 (Finnair) but have no room to display it so it sits on the shelf, wingless and forlorn looking. But that still hasn't stopped me buying more aftermarket decal sheets for the A350.

 

 

Jeff

cheers jeff. yeh I haven't posted a lot of progress on this one due to other stuff I'm doing but its ended up a half decent job. didn't really want the kit at first but bought it on a whim as there wasn't much available in the store I went to. 

I've got to be honest, the aircraft has grown on me, apart from the nose the design of the aircraft is beautiful, I certainly think it looks worse in euro white, a bit of colour improves the overall look (in my humble opinion) 

you got a work in progress page for your Finnair? what did you think of the engines? I found them a bit flimsy...if there was solid resin ones available I would have probably bought them (mind they weren't anywhere near as irritating as the zvezda 787 engines with the separate chevrons which snapped off about 5 times)

 

phil

 

 

[pinky coffeeboat]

Hi Phil,

 

As far as the A350 and growing on me, it has too and I like the nose from this angle, Finnair A350 but from the side the nose is just awful.

 

My Finnair A350 was built without a WiP but I put it together and took some photos

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, there's a few things left to do (antennae, wing lights, nose gear doors) but since I've no room to display it, I lost interest and shoved it on the shelf.

Honestly, I don't remember many issues with the engines, sorry!

 

 

Jeff

 

Edited January 16, 2019 by pinky coffeeboat

[phil1]

On 1/16/2019 at 3:23 PM, pinky coffeeboat said:

Hi Phil,

 

As far as the A350 and growing on me, it has too and I like the nose from this angle, Finnair A350 but from the side the nose is just awful.

 

My Finnair A350 was built without a WiP but I put it together and took some photos

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, there's a few things left to do (antennae, wing lights, nose gear doors) but since I've no room to display it, I lost interest and shoved it on the shelf.

Honestly, I don't remember many issues with the engines, sorry!

 

 

Jeff

 

beautiful job jeff! love the job on the engines in particular

 

phil

[Gimme Shelter]

I'm a late starter to this thread but there is some great modelling going on here which has to be complemented, I do so love that Virgin A340 kicking around in the background too (I bought a stupidly expensive resin conversion set from Hannants years ago to convert the -300 up to a -600 so I really should have a go myself).

 

Although I have always been a bit snobby about Boeing, I do have a fond place in my heart for Airbus as I live very close to LHR and see herds of the things (big and Small) coming and going every day, BUT I really cannot get my head around the A350 which has to be the ugliest civil ever built. I just don't see how Airbus could design such an amazing new and economical piece of engineering only to make it look ugly. I wonder if they did so just to make it look obviously different from the 787. Am I missing something - is the A350's nose an aerodynamic and pioneering way forward in aircraft design?

 

Its great to see such talented and well made A350's though.