Hark!! the HERALD, engines singing...

[pinky coffeeboat]

...sorry.

 

Hi,

 

I received this kit just before Christmas and did a quick "comment" on it over in the Rumourmonger section. It's part of an ever expanding range of much neglected airliners being put out by the Russian model making company called Eastern Express (EE). The celebration amongst airliner modellers with each new release is tempered slightly by the high prices being asked and in some (but not all) cases, less than perfect fit. I've bought quite a few of their kits and some range from OK (Fokker F-27) to actually very nice (MD-87 and the McDD T-tail range they have). Hopefully this one will build up to be, if not very nice, then OK.

 

Box art consists of an actual picture of the subject but some of their releases do feature a bit of drawn artwork, but some of it is a little bit suspect...

 

 

 

Fuselage halves:

 

 

Wings:

 

 

Engines:

 

 

and all the rest:

 

 

Overall, the model isn't too badly made but there are a couple of small issues present,

 

 

and

 

 

but nothing insurmountable.

 

The kit is available in four versions at the moment and I chose Channel Express, though I was, and still am, tempted by Air UK.

 

 

 

I'll be starting it very shortly and it will be squeezed in amongst this lot - F-rsin ATR-72 (Flybe Nordic), Hasegawa YS-11 (Phuket Air), Eastern Express F-27 (yeah, I know - Air UK) and Shorts 360 from the same company (American Eagle). There are others that aren't on the bench at the moment but they may make a background appearance as I progress with this one.

 

 

 

Jeff

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2019 by pinky coffeeboat
postimage issues..

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Busy airport you there, mate.

Nice types!

[pinky coffeeboat]

Thank you. I'm ashamed to admit some of these have been delayed for many months. In fact the YS-11 has been waiting patiently for a few years for me to decide what colour scheme it would finally wear. The decision was made last week and now I'm pushing on with it.

 

The Herald will be started very shortly (it'll be today!!), thanks all for tagging along so far.

 

Jeff

Edited January 14, 2019 by pinky coffeeboat

[bigbadbadge]

Hi

You have done some  lovely aircraft in the photo above.

I have one of these on the go although I haven't touched it for a while. I have sanded the raised panel lines off and filled the windows flush to do the freight bird. There's a couple of pictures on my Bristol Super Freighter build thread, I haven't started a thread for it.

Good luck with your build.

All the best

Chris

[Graeme H]

Really interesting selection there, what scheme are you planning for the shed?

[pinky coffeeboat]

Ha, the "shed". That will be American Eagle from the kit decals. I also have the EE version that includes both QANTAS and Australian schemes (and Aer Lingus and British Midland releases of the kit). It's not a bad model, it just requires a few minutes with each part to get a good fit. It's been primed but modelling has been stalled for a few months and now I've got a bit of a backlog to clear.

 

Jeff

[pinky coffeeboat]

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Hi

You have done some  lovely aircraft in the photo above.

I have one of these on the go although I haven't touched it for a while. I have sanded the raised panel lines off and filled the windows flush to do the freight bird. There's a couple of pictures on my Bristol Super Freighter build thread, I haven't started a thread for it.

Good luck with your build.

All the best

Chris

Hi Chris,

 

Have you got the old Frog 1/72 Herald kit? I saw one on eBay recently and was very tempted. If I remember correctly, the Frog kit is the initial shorter fuselage version?

But as much as I'd like one, I haven't really got the room for larger models and I'm thinking about selling the half dozen or more 1/72 Airfix F-27 I bought a while ago. It's about the same size as the Herald. 

The collection of models in my photo above is pretty much the ideal size for me now, with perhaps an A321 being the biggest I can manage. 

 

Jeff 

[Graham Boak]

No, the Frog one was the long fuselage.

 

When I was with HP,  I was told of a planned reorganisation of the stores.  Someone was sent out for Herald kits to stock a display of the new layout, but had to come back with F-27s. No-one ever commented.

[bigbadbadge]

1 hour ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

Hi Chris,

 

Have you got the old Frog 1/72 Herald kit? I saw one on eBay recently and was very tempted. If I remember correctly, the Frog kit is the initial shorter fuselage version?

But as much as I'd like one, I haven't really got the room for larger models and I'm thinking about selling the half dozen or more 1/72 Airfix F-27 I bought a while ago. It's about the same size as the Herald. 

The collection of models in my photo above is pretty much the ideal size for me now, with perhaps an A321 being the biggest I can manage. 

 

Jeff 

Hi Jeff

I have the Marquette boxing of the old Frog kit. Will have to work on it a bit more when I get a chance. I didn't see the scale in the bottom of the box image this morning. I didn't have my glasses on as getting ready for work !!!

Keep up the good work.

All the best

Chris

[pinky coffeeboat]

Thanks Graham.

A few years ago on the Airliner Group Build 2016, a member built the kit but in my foggy memory I thought he had to extend it for the colour scheme he intended to use. Having just checked, he wanted to build the BEA aircraft which were the shorter fuselage, so he had to cut some out. And yours was one of the first comments on that thread!

 

Jeff

[pinky coffeeboat]

Hello,

 

From previous EE kits I've built, I know that prep work is required on some or all of the parts to either make the part usable or to improve the fit. In this case, it was required to remove the flash and attachment points on the fuselage halves.

 

 

 

This method of attachment seems to be increasing in use, whereby the sprue gate is connected to the mating surface and not to the exterior surface of the model. I'm not a great fan of this and although I can see the reason behind it, there are some times when this method can be more awkward to clean up. 

However, with the gates removed a gentle sanding on a block helped remove the flash, the little gate stubs and improve the fit.

 

 

 

The aircraft I'm making will be that provided in the kit, G-AVPN. Having a good look a available pictures like these

 

Channel Express G-AVPN

 

and 

 

G-AVPN Air UK

 

shows that the aircraft didn't have the left side fin strake bulge. Nor did it feature the strake leading edge air scoop. At first, I thought this was related to air conditioning, but having seen Heralds with the bulge but no scoop and scoop but no bulge, I'm not so certain. Does anyone know what the bulge is? Anyone who may have worked either with Handley Page or fixed Heralds for a living?

Therefore the kit bulge will be removed. Whilst I'm down the tail end, I've also noted that the fin and rudder metal corrugations haven't been portrayed at all and both are smoothly moulded. Oddly, from a picture I seen, the Welshmodels vac-form kit has them. It is possible to add these, by either stretched sprue over quite a few evenings, or by lightly scribing them in. For me, life's a bit too short now, so I'll forego adding the 70+ ridges (I did count them, and there was me saying just now "life's too short"!!)

 

 

 

Small steps, but progress nonetheless. Hopefully, later tonight the fuselage can be joined, the wings built and maybe even think about starting the engines.

 

Jeff

[rossm]

Sorry for a slight divert of your thread, I want to build a Brymon Airways Herald and I have most of a Frog kit but missing one wing half. If anyone reading this has a scrap one that could help please can they let me know. I did have a "Wanted" post for it but it was a long time ago so could have disappeared.

Thanks,

Ross

 

PS Buying an Eastern Express one is a possibility but whether I could manage the painting in 1/144 is a matter for debate, I only planned to print the logos in 1/72, not the cheat lines & windows.

[pinky coffeeboat]

I'd like to build a Brymon Herald too and recently bought the 26decals Twin Otter sheet for the Brymon aircraft. As I mentioned at the start of this build, the higher cost of these EE models really puts me off from buying the many that I think I need! 

 

The build hasn't stalled - well, it has a bit mainly due to wanting to clear the stash above and because some of those models require a little bit more than simple modelling skills which can be a case of "one step forward, half a step backwards". So, I started another couple of models from Zvezda (A321 and 737-8MAX). These are kind of "Tamiya shake and bake" for airliner modellers. Except for the fact that again, my 737 wings are quite warped and the weather is a bit too cold to open the window to spray. But enough procrastinating...

 

Jeff

[rossm]

I also have the Brymon Twotter sheet. Brymon used to be my local airline until BA bought them just to rob them of their Heathrow slots. Even so I bought the BA livery for my stalled DHC-8 build before I relented and bought the Brymon livery for that. So now I have two Dash8 decal sheets and one kit! So you're not the only one with a buying habit!