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LOCKHEED L-188 ELECTRA AMERICAN AIRLINES , REVELL 1/118


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This is probably one of the rarest Revell kits nowadays.

The first release was in 1957 with only 2 or 3 re-releases the following years,one being a Revell/Lodela kit with VARIG decals and one with a special livery of an American football team if I remember correctly.

 

As with the Revell Convair 990 kit,I also found this rarity on a Swiss auction plattform,and also here I got together ,with the new kit,a finished one with some missing parts and apart from the applied decals,it was completely unpainted.

As there are no aftermarked parts available,it was not easy to repair this kit.

One wing had the propellers missing as well as the spinners and the rear cabin door was also gone.

I decided to leave the propellers and mount it on one of those original Revell swivel stands and present it in-flight with "turning" props...by simply fit in new spinners that I found in my spares box.The are not completely accurate but they do the trick.

 

I wanted to rebuild the kit in its original markings and I also found a wonderful new set at Vintage Flyers.

My first attempt of painting an all-natural metal fuselage left me not very satisfied,so I went for a,at least for me, new approach.

When I found a picture of a flying American Airlines Electra with that shiny bare-metal fuselage,I decided to use Bare-Metal foil to wrap the whole fuselage to achieve the same result.

It was a tedious task and took hours to apply all the foils but the final result is very pleasing.

The wings and engines are painted with Testors aluminium as these parts didn't look as hiny on the picture as the rest of the plane.

 

Compared to the Minicraft 1/144 kit,Revells over 60 years old offering is far more accurate than the Minicraft version.It also has its faults,but the overall look beats the Minicraft in my opinion.

Too bad that Revell altered the moulds to create the Orion out of it,so its impossible to ever see a re-release of this gem.

 

The Electra logo on the stand comes from the original Revell decal set.It was stiff as a board but I managed to get it on the stand with lots of decal softener and laquer...

 

Enjoy

 

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Edited by Alex1978
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Yep...another beautiful job on an old kit. Kudos for taking the old sow's ear you received and making it into a beautiful silk purse. And a great job on the bare metal foil work too. I've never tried it...but I have a great appreciation and admiration for those who have. 👍

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Brilliant, in everyway, that's a wonderful finish & a stunning model. Teal/Air New Zealand flew these trans Tasman from 1959 to 1971, alas I was never to fly in one but used to hear them drone overhead from Wellington to Melbourne. They have remained a sentimental favourite, yours has done that no harm at all. :)

Steve.

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Great job. Brings back fond memories of the Electra for me. At one point I was in line to become a co pilot on them for a cargo airline I worked with. In the end it was not to be. But I did get to taxi one across the airport for a compass swing. A memorable moment indeed.

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11 hours ago, AMB said:

Good job Alex!  With the props missing, might I suggest you cut some discs out of clear acetate sheet and fix them on to represent the props turning?

Thank you very much.

 

I tried that out and the result was not very pleasing.Thats why I took them off and installed the spinners only.

This result looks far better in my opinion.

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Alex, you could just have one propeller visible, as in failed. We had problems with reliability, lots of stoppages. Remember the actual aircraft was as old as the model kit. The wings cracked a lot too. 

It was a bit of a beast but we all loved it.

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Hi Alex,

That's a beautiful nmf you've achieved! How did you find the Vintage Flyer decals, I like the curtains!

Pity about the prop blades, have you thought about using these?

http://www.propblur.com/store/c1/PropBlur.comMain

 

So are you going to build the other kit or keep it as an investment?

Cheers,

Ian

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So shiny, so chrome! Lovely.

This is the old 'Astrojet' livery isn't it? It must have been a bit of a maintenance nightmare keeping these birds all polished up. Worth it though.

 

When we arrived in Australia in the early 70's only Ansett was still running Electras, and only as freighters at that. I still remember the distinctive pre-dawn grumble of these old birds setting about their business to this day.

Living in Adelaide I have the local (Edinburgh based) P-3 Orions keeping those audible memories alive to this day. Alas not for much longer though.

 

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On 27/10/2018 at 21:10, Turbofan said:

Hi Alex,

That's a beautiful nmf you've achieved! How did you find the Vintage Flyer decals, I like the curtains!

Pity about the prop blades, have you thought about using these?

http://www.propblur.com/store/c1/PropBlur.comMain

 

So are you going to build the other kit or keep it as an investment?

Cheers,

Ian

Thank you very much Ian.

 

I will check out that site,see if I can find something that fits.

 

The other one will be built someday.Still thinking in what livery though.

I fancy the Ansett/ANA version but still undecided

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Very nice. Old Revell kits can be quite pretty - provided you aren't concerned about having consistent scale in your collection.

 

Electras were fairly rare in Europe - the only main user as passenger aircraft being KLM. Later when they were converted to freighters we began to see a few more - such as those operated by Air Atlantique.

 

I remember seeing one at Shannon back in the 1970s. It was being operated by an American cargo airline and was carrying a load of explosives. It was parked out in the middle of the airfield, well away from the terminal area.

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