1/72 Boeing 737-200 Air Zimbabwe

[RidgeRunner]

On 2/28/2021 at 7:46 PM, mitchem said:

looks a bit like Rob Beckett? 

In my day it was Derek Hill (now at Ryanair)

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

On 3/7/2021 at 8:21 PM, mitchem said:

 

Thanks Steve. Not sure what happened there as the different name "Matojeni" ended up on Z-WPC. The name is linked to the Matopos Hills outside Bulawayo (Zimbabwe's second city), where I was lucky enough to live between 1970 and 1977. 

 

Not sure what happened to the nose cone either, but it certainly looks like it was damaged at some stage, and then replaced with one that didn't have cheatline painted on it. (As I'll only be building one of these, I'll be aiming for the full effect 😆)

 

mike

This is progressing very nicely Mike, I have one of these in the USAF boxing, so watching with interest.

 

As regards to name changes, it is common with other airlines, QANTAS comes to mind here, they have regularly changed aircraft names of the span of an airframe's life, for example B707 VH-EBU.....

Delivered as City of Broken Hill - March 1967

Renamed City of Wollongong - April 1975

Renamed City of Parramatta - July 1975

[Alex1978]

Just found this thread.

Looks great and the choice of livery is spot on.

As it happens,I have currently the BPK 1/72 Boeing 737-800 on the bench.

Top kit so far and enjoying the build.

The -100 and -200 are already in the stash as well.

So this WIP will be of great interest to me

[jean]

Hi Mike,

 

a 1/72 737 must be a big beast! I am out of cement to build a new hangar for it, so I will pass!

I have flown in these birds quite a lot on the Harare-Jo'burg route and they were rather comfy.

Looking forward to see your progress on the monster!

Air Zimbabwe: A tradition of scaring... That has been true a while back. No idea today, but I doubt it has improved!

 

Have fun!

JR

[jean]

Hi Mike,

 

in the good old days, the Zimbo pilots knew how to have fun!

This is not a 737, but it is bigger and full of passengers. He could still go a few feet lower though. Chicken!

 

 

Cheers

JR

Edited March 27, 2021 by jean

[mitchem]

Thanks for the comments and apologies for having suddenly gone AWOL.

 

A club-mate was kind enough to volunteer and have a crack at printing some passenger seats for the interior. I thought about it long and hard and my mind was swamped with questions like "How am I going to retrofit them now that the fuselage halve are buttoned up", "what are the seat dimensions in 1/72", "where is he going to get CAD designs for the printer", and most importantly "this could ruin any chance I have of completing the build within the deadline"....

 

In the end, I was torn but I had to turn down his kind offer (BUT ONLY ON A TEMPORARY BASIS ! - I'm planning on having a crack at Heller's 1/72 707 next year....or the year after....or the year after......)

 

Then I stumbled across Col's comment :

 

On 3/20/2021 at 8:19 AM, Col. said:

Tidy work and the fuselage windows look great Mike. Perhaps mocking up some basic bulkheads and seats can help fill the interior? Depends how much can be seen through all the windows but it'd be a shame to hide all your great work behind window decals.

 

 

...and it was  at this point that I completely lost the plot :

 

 

Nothing fancy - just something to fill the void. Question was, would they fool anyone ?

 

 

I think I might just get away with it ! 🤔

 

In the meantime, I've cleaned up the undercarriage bay components and fitted them without committing any to glue. The tail cone has been attached, as has the APU exhaust, and then the front and tail have been taped into place to give the old mojo a kick :

 

 

Onwards and upwards !

 

mike

 

[mitchem]

3 minutes ago, jean said:

Hi Mike,

 

in the good old days, the Zimbo pilots knew how to have fun!

This is not a 737, but it is bigger and full of passengers. He could still go a few feet lower though. Chicken!

 

 

Cheers

JR

 

 

Thanks JR.

 

"Great Zimbabwe" with no cheatline and NO undercarriage ! 😆

 

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Zimbabwe/Boeing-737-2N0-Adv/2511206/L

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

The seats look like a simple and elegant solution Mike, nice job on them

[Back in the Saddle]

I shall enjoy watching this come together! Great start so far.👍

[keefr22]

Sorry Mike, I completely forgot about this when you mentioned it t'other week! Still just had an enjoyable catch up and it's all looking good so far! Lack of pax shouldn't be a problem, just say the crew are bringing it back from maintenance! 

 

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Zimbabwe/Boeing-737-2N0-Adv/2511206/L

 

What a picture that is....!!

 

Keith

 

PS glad I don't have room for a 1/72 737, as Clive offered me his T-43 kit in order to build this;

 

https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F1617147237328-fvbhrpmj0evvn7zx3dfg1.jpeg?quality=60

 

🤣

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

26 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

PS glad I don't have room for a 1/72 737, as Clive offered me his T-43 kit in order to build this;

 

https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F1617147237328-fvbhrpmj0evvn7zx3dfg1.jpeg?quality=60

Thats scary looking, what the heck is it for ?

[keefr22]

19 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Thats scary looking, what the heck is it for ?

 

Apparently testing the radar signatures (or lack of) of stealth aircraft - story here;

 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40003/the-worlds-most-secretive-737-just-showed-its-bizarre-self-over-the-mojave-desert

 

K

[busnproplinerfan]

I’ll be watching this one.

[Grandboof]

Great work with the cabin windows 

Martin H

[mitchem]

11 hours ago, keefr22 said:

PS glad I don't have room for a 1/72 737, as Clive offered me his T-43 kit in order to build this;

 

I wish he'd stop trying to sell the thing off - I may still need it for spares when I mess this up ! (I still feel bad that he bought it after seeing my kit at the club,,,,,,,,,🤣)

 

Thanks to everyone for the support. I must admit that the seating problem is doing my head in and I'm still not too sure whether to finish off the dummy seats or just leave them out altogether. Final decision will be made by the end of the day.

 

In an effort to keep the build moving along, I assembled the main undercarriage bay. Here are the components before everything got boxed in and disappeared from view :

 

 

I suppose I could have gone overboard by throwing a heap of lead wire in but I'm having enough trouble with the passenger seats as it is 😆.

 

By the way, if anyone is looking for an excellent reference, I can thoroughly recommend "Boeing 737 - The world's jetliner" by Captain Dan Dornseif. As an added bonus, he has included some of his builds of 737 models at the end of the book - including one covering the very same BPK kit. (....and that's how I know that the orange and black bar running across the rear bulkhead represents the flap drive shafts)

 

mike

[mitchem]

11 hours ago, mitchem said:

Thanks to everyone for the support. I must admit that the seating problem is doing my head in and I'm still not too sure whether to finish off the dummy seats or just leave them out altogether. Final decision will be made by the end of the day.

 

My wife said I spend too much time procrastinating so she suggested I do some chores around the house today. I can always count on her to help me make decisions, so I opted to make the dummy seats instead.

 

After my false start with the seats, I decided that mass production was the only way to get this monkey off my back.

 

Plastic sheet measured out and scribed :

 

 

Then it was a simple case of snapping the seats off along the scribed lines :

 

 

Round the corners off on the headrests before folding them a bit with tweezers. Glue them onto base strips at a slight angle and presto :

 

 

Paint half of them (because we're in a rush to test-drive them) :

 

 

Slot both rows into the fuselage and have a look through the windows :

 

 

I think it would be fair to say that it looks more like a passenger jet now ?

 

mike

[Back in the Saddle]

10 minutes ago, mitchem said:

I think it would be fair to say that it looks more like a passenger jet now ?

That looks very convincing - wish I’d done that on my 707 before buttoning it up...

[Col.]

I'll happily take the blame for leading you astray because the result looks great

[keefr22]

20 hours ago, mitchem said:

think it would be fair to say that it looks more like a passenger jet now ?

 

 

Not 'arf....!!

 

Top job Mike!!

 

Keith

[mitchem]

"It's the seats what's done me head in !"

 

I've attached the wingbox / main undercarriage bay to the fuselage and the joints have been blended in. Fit was better than expected with just a bit of filler on the forward joint. I also took the opportunity to remove the nosewheel door sections from the fuselage, as I'm not planning on trying to add the nosewheel bay near the end of the build.

 

 

Flipping the fuselage over, I attended to the seam on the top

 

 

I didn't bother with the white bit at the end of the fuselage as this will be covered when I add the tail. I'm keeping a close eye on the top joint as I'm not to sure if my efforts to exorcise the ghost seam have been wholly successful.

 

Once everything had completely dried, I fitted my seat strips into the fuselage, adjusted the height at the front and then glued them to the top of the wheel bay with two part epoxy.  Turned on the cabin lights and checked the seating through the windows from the outside:

 

 

More than happy with the result, but now I'm thinking I should have made 120 Air Zimbabwe headrest covers ? 

 

At least that see-through look has gone.

 

Looking towards the next steps, I've had a quick gander at the engines components. BPK have supplied brass sheet which needs to be rolled up to make exhausts, but I've chickened out and ordered some brass tubing instead, Having said that, I probably need to build the nosewheel bay and add that to the fuselage before gluing on the nose section. You guys must be sick of seeing the same photos?

 

Watch this space....

 

 

[Back in the Saddle]

4 hours ago, mitchem said:

I'm keeping a close eye on the top joint as I'm not to sure if my efforts to exorcise the ghost seam have been wholly successful.

I know exactly what you mean - you think you've got it, then the light catches it at a different angle and you have to go back to it again!

 

Those seats look excellent, well worth the effort.👍

[Col.]

Progress! Keep the photos coming as I'm certainly not sick of seeing them if you're making headway on this one.

[zebra]

5 hours ago, mitchem said:

More than happy with the result, but now I'm thinking I should have made 120 Air Zimbabwe headrest covers ? 

 

The seats look great and would have looked even better with the headrest covers, but doing it might not be all that good for your mental health!

[mitchem]

Managed to divert my attention away from the seats and started looking at the engines. As I think I mentioned before, BPK supplied rectangles of brass sheet which are meant to be rolled up to form the exhausts. Not for me......

 

I've opted to try and use brass tube and whereas my dad would have told me to "measure twice, cut once", I should have listened to my mum "measure twice, buy once". I ended up getting a section of tube that was slightly too wide to fit the diameter of the plastic orifice, so I ended up buying another. Here are some of the components

 

 

The tubing was cut to size and the section of smaller diameter tube was slid into the larger one. I've mocked up an engine up and I reckon I should be able create a seamless intake when I get around to gluing everything together

 

 

I'm also aiming to clean up the plastic at the exhaust and making sure that everything is squared up, before sliding the brass components down into their final resting place.

 

 

...and then just to "gee" myself up, I've glued the front wheel bay onto the fuselage  before adding the cockpit section. The joints were okay but they will need some attention in order to fair them in properly. I also tacked on the nose cone using Kristal Klear and then taped the wings and an engine together.

 

 

Looking like a 737 now.

 

mike

[mitchem]

...and just when you'd thought that I'd given up.

 

I've been working on the port engine nacelle. The intake was cemented into one half and the exhaust was put in place before the two halves were joined. Everything has been blended in. Just need to tidy up the back end before fixing the exhaust into its final resting place.

 

 

I've also managed to blend the cockpit and nosecone in and although I still need to replace the strakes on the nosecone, I'm pleased with the way things have turned out.

 

Applied some spare decals to the starboard fuselage and the "www" titles are now subject to review.

 

I made a temporary decal for the tail stripes but I'm still planning to paint these on, but only after I've re-masked the fuselage windows and applied the white base.

 

 

 

mike