Tupolev 134A. Old dirty soviet fuel burner

[Sent-off]

Hi all.
Finally got myself an airbrush and opened up a new exciting world of pain and thinners and mixing paints and trying to wash the paint off the pants, haha.
This has been a very random build, because I came across the Tu-134 as a cheapest kit available and I instantly thought I always wanted one.
The build was quite an easy one except for the canopy fit, probably. I missed the fact that rudder is put between the two halves of the fuselage, which is an unusual feat. Eventually had to force it in place and do some repairs.
The navigator glasshouse does not fit at all (which I was aware of). I tried to keep the two halves of the fuselage unglued forward of the nose gear bay and cockpit windshield, fit the the navigators canopy and fill the gap, but it didn't work quite as expected. Still maybe this is the way around for someone with a rather better skill and patience than me.
There is a huge rant over at the russian model community side about the inflight stabilizer angle being -1.5 or something degrees down as a must do. Well I got it slightly nose down and that's about it.

Once again, airbrush is a great excitement for me, being a trained painter I know a thing or two about colour mixing.

First time tried and oil wash (with the terror and relief!).
Didn't bother to glue back an underside antenna because it won't stay.
And yeah, right side 'soviet bird' logo somehow slid after applying, don't know when
Enjoy





I've decided to paint fancy lemon yellow spinners








My cat in 1:1 scale

[ForestFan]

Nice job, I do like the old classic airliners. The cat is hopefully being respectful of your build!!

[SAT69]

Very nice build. Had you not mentioned it, there was no way anyone would notice a problem with the navigator glass house or the cockpit clear panels. Both look very good. I know how feel about the Aeroflit bird sliding. Had the same thing happen with an ejection seat warning decal on a Monogram F-100D and like you I don't know when it shifted. 

[Sent-off]

1 hour ago, ForestFan said:

Nice job, I do like the old classic airliners. The cat is hopefully being respectful of your build!!

Thank you! Yes, the cat and the airplane are both good

[Sent-off]

34 minutes ago, SAT69 said:

Very nice build. Had you not mentioned it, there was no way anyone would notice a problem with the navigator glass house or the cockpit clear panels. Both look very good. I know how feel about the Aeroflit bird sliding. Had the same thing happen with an ejection seat warning decal on a Monogram F-100D and like you I don't know when it shifted. 

Yes indeed. I did apply it level and only noticed it slid after a few layers of clear coat, left me scratching my head

[Alpha Delta 210]

Absolutely stunning build. The cat looks perilously close...

[F-32]

Lovely work, the 1:1 scale cat is particularly impressive

[Wulfman]

Great looking model, excellent work !

 

Wulfman

[RMCS]

Brilliant 

[Sent-off]

Thanks, chaps

[Dennis_C]

Nice build! And great it is done in classic Aeroflot livery which I think fits very well both this and its larger bro Tu-154.  

Flew this many times as a kid and the last time it was in 2008 on DMO-MSQ route when Belavia suddenly served an old fuel burner instead of B733 which was already typical on that route back then. 

Tu-134 take off and touch down moments were much 'sharper' than in the modern airliners. You would be really pressed into chair on take off!!!

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Nicely executed Tu-134A, a master converter of jet fuel into jet noise!  I was a bit thrown by the cat's presence in the photo-shoot.  I think you did fine as a first-time airbrush user.  This is a tiny little kit and demands all sorts of patience.  Sure wish Zvezda would scale it up to 1/72, but that's not gonna happen.  Alex 

[Sent-off]

20 minutes ago, Dennis_C said:

Nice build! And great it is done in classic Aeroflot livery which I think fits very well both this and its larger bro Tu-154.  

Flew this many times as a kid and the last time it was in 2008 on DMO-MSQ route when Belavia suddenly served an old fuel burner instead of B733 which was already typical on that route back then. 

Tu-134 take off and touch down moments were much 'sharper' than in the modern airliners. You would be really pressed into chair on take off!!!

 

Thanks! Never had a chance to fly her before she retired (only Tu5), but it was always a treat to watch one commencing a take-off. I guess now that I'm older I feel nostalgic more often, hence I'm making some retired airframes these days, haha 

[Sent-off]

24 minutes ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Nicely executed Tu-134A, a master converter of jet fuel into jet noise!  I was a bit thrown by the cat's presence in the photo-shoot.  I think you did fine as a first-time airbrush user.  This is a tiny little kit and demands all sorts of patience.  Sure wish Zvezda would scale it up to 1/72, but that's not gonna happen.  Alex 

Oh, god, yes! It was quite small even for my familiar 1/144. Md-90 looks like a T-tail on steroids beside the Tupolev. I've got a Q400 in a stash, probably similar capacity and size (and much simplier landing gear!!!), we'll see.

[Lord Riot]

Superb! 

I remember one of these at Woodford Airshow back in '93, supporting the Su-27 pair. It used up about 7,500 feet of the 7,520 foot runway before finally hauling itself into the air, sending a few photographers and spotters jumping into the stream at the end of it. I think anyone watching from inside the houses under the take-off would have been washing their trousers after that too!

Edited May 18, 2020 by Lord Riot

[Dennis_C]

42 minutes ago, Sent-off said:

Oh, god, yes! It was quite small even for my familiar 1/144. Md-90 looks like a T-tail on steroids beside the Tupolev. I've got a Q400 in a stash, probably similar capacity and size (and much simplier landing gear!!!), we'll see.

First of all this is because of very slim Tu-134 fuselage diameter of just 2.9 meters that it surprisingly inherited from B-29. Tu-4 was a copy of B-29 with 2.9 meters fuselage and same diameter is retained on all the Tupolev bombers all the way through to Tu-95 series. Tu-104 had a wider fuselage but in order to speed up production and decrease costs a smaller and narrower Tu-124 airliner was put in place using equipment used for bombers manufacturing. With 2.9 m fuselage. Tu-134 was a direct development of Tu-124 with more advanced engines and aerodynamics. But with the same fuselage. 

In fact if you compare Tu-134 to modern jets - it's similar to CRJ900 or Embraer-175 that have 2.7 and 3 meters fuselages respectively while DC-9 with its derivatives was wider.