Finished: Atlantic Airways Airbus A319 (1/200 Hasegawa)

[bianfuxia]

Here's my build of the little A319 flown by Atlantic Airways, based in the Faroe Islands, which (more or less) falls under the jurisdiction of Denmark (though with a high degree of autonomy - it's basically an independent country except in foreign affairs).

 

But Hasegawa never released an A319 in 1/200! True. So I am gonna run a chop shop in my shed and trim down an A320. I have some nice Atlantic Airways decals from https://airlinedecals.com/

 

This is part of my quest to build one airliner of each type I've been a passenger on, in the livery of an airline I flew it in. I've flown the A319 a few times - Air Macao, Beijing Capital Airlines, the now-defunct Chinese airline called United Eagle (I think), and maybe another Chinese one.

 

But in 2015 we visited the Faroes with our five month old baby. Long story! It went well. And the flight to Torshavn from Copenhagen, and return, was in an A319.

 

 

 

 

We got the idea to go there from my parents who'd been a few years prior. So I actually picked up two sets of decals and two kits, and this GB comes along perfectly timed, as I'd planned to give them the model for Christmas. 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2021 by bianfuxia

[trickyrich]

now this is something a bit different.....will be interesting to see how you chop her down  to size! 

 

Fareo Is sound way to cold for me, summer temperatures around 12C, no thank you!!!   i'm not warm until its +30C!!

[desert falcon]

That’s a great idea, will be following your chopping sessions with great interest!

 

Two differences between the A320 and the A319 which comes to mind is that the A319 only have a single overwing emergency exit on each side, where as the A320 has two. 
 

Not sure how detailed your kit/decals are but the A319 also doesn’t have a bulk cargo door on the LH side behind the aft cargo door, where as the A320 will have both an aft and bulk cargo door behind the LH wing (the bulk being the smaller one). 
 

I’m off to (big) Denmark for a couple of days leave, but once I’m back I’ll be happy to provide you more details on the A319 if needed 🙂 (worked on this beatiful aircraft for many years). 
 

Cheers

Johnny b 

 

[CliffB]

I'll be watching with particular interest 

I've got a Hasegawa A320 to A319 conversion waiting to be done sometime (Easyjet), but I've taken the coward's way out and bought a RetroKit conversion set!

 

Cheers

[bianfuxia]

2 hours ago, trickyrich said:

now this is something a bit different.....will be interesting to see how you chop her down  to size! 

 

Fareo Is sound way to cold for me, summer temperatures around 12C, no thank you!!!   i'm not warm until its +30C!!

Yeah it was pretty wild wet and windy when we were there. Actually even the locals were grumbling about how wet that summer was. Predictably the sun came out on about the last day. But it was a nice holiday and honestly a relief compared to where we lived then - Beijing - which was insufferably hot and smoggy.

 

2 hours ago, desert falcon said:

That’s a great idea, will be following your chopping sessions with great interest!

 

Two differences between the A320 and the A319 which comes to mind is that the A319 only have a single overwing emergency exit on each side, where as the A320 has two. 
 

Not sure how detailed your kit/decals are but the A319 also doesn’t have a bulk cargo door on the LH side behind the aft cargo door, where as the A320 will have both an aft and bulk cargo door behind the LH wing (the bulk being the smaller one). 
 

I’m off to (big) Denmark for a couple of days leave, but once I’m back I’ll be happy to provide you more details on the A319 if needed 🙂 (worked on this beatiful aircraft for many years). 
 

Cheers

Johnny b 

 

Thanks - I haven't taken a close look at the decals until now but I know of the basic differences with exits. Having taken a quick look now it seems like you need to do a bit of chopping on the provided decals, too. The set is for A319 and A320 so I guess you need to count out the right number of windows and use the bit with the single exit for the shorter one. If I have any questions I will definitely ask!

 

2 hours ago, CliffB said:

I'll be watching with particular interest 

I've got a Hasegawa A320 to A319 conversion waiting to be done sometime (Easyjet), but I've taken the coward's way out and bought a RetroKit conversion set!

 

Cheers

Hey yeah I thought of this too but as I need to do two, I figured I just better bite the bullet.  I also want to make a 736 and 739 as part of this broader airliner project - so I need to figure it out eventually!

[Col.]

Good to see a subject with some personal connection and a civilian one at that  

[bianfuxia]

Well, I finally made a start on this one.

 

 

Hasegawa has several boxings of the A320 in 1/200, mostly or all of Japanese airlines. Some come with the older winglets and some with the larger, newer ones.

 

I got the decals from a website called www.airlinedecals.com. They are pretty home-brewed but the owner obviously tries to make it a good package and they are not expensive. I bought a whole bunch of stuff. I got two sets because I want two Atlantic Airways A319s one for me and one for my parents.

 

The decals are ok, maybe not as sharp as the commercial product -let's see how they work. I will use as much as I can from the Hasegawa sheet and I'll try to paint that large dark blue area rather than use the decal.

 

These Hasegawa kits are basic and small. They come with this handy noseweight feature:

 

 

This time around I started with the engines because I have lots of nearly-finished airliners with unbuilt engines. Don'twant to fall into that trap again.

 

 

These are small but nicely engineered - you can see the little tabs for aligning the rear part of it.

 

 

My engines always need a little sanding which is probably why so many of my builds stall there. Not this one!

 

The wings are dead easy - only five parts each and they fit nicely.

 

 

Using a trace of the fuselage side and a diagram I found on wikipedia, Imeasured up my cuts (by zooming the image on my phone until it matched the scale of that trace - very scientific!)

 

Then I realized I should have done it on the other side because of the moulded cargo doors, which are possibly the wrong size for a 319.

 

 

So I moved the cuts a bit. 

 

Remember,this thing is tiny and it just has to look right. I'm not auditioning for a job at Airbus here!

 

And that's as far as I've got so far!

[trickyrich]

great start, the detail looks to be quite good as well and I like their nose weight.

 

Next looks to be the scary bit, chopping her up.... good luck with that

[bianfuxia]

On 11/14/2021 at 7:35 AM, trickyrich said:

great start, the detail looks to be quite good as well and I like their nose weight.

 

Next looks to be the scary bit, chopping her up.... good luck with that

Yep, I needed that luck.

 

Here's the tale in full...

 

I've never done this before, so I figured it out on first principles. I used yellow tape to indicate where I needed to make the cuts, based on the diagram I had drawn before.

 

First cut went nicely. I thought I was gonna ace it!

 

 

Second one was good, too:

 

In face, the whole of that side went well:

 

Unfortunately, I really messed up the other side and had to do some crude hacking with a knife. Now there's a bit of a mess to fix:

 

Also, as the A320 was shrunk to the A319 and then the even-shorter A318, I briefly contemplated building mine as the little known concept A301:

 

 

So now I have to work out how to get all those bit neatly together. I am presently thinking that I should put an interior liner of plasticard at the joins which will help hold it in place and also give some backing for the filler (I'll need a lot of that).

 

 

 

[Col.]

I'd suggest the plasticard liner followed up by some plasticard planking to build up the level and use less filler.

[Grandboof]

Best of luck with this . 

Martin H

[bianfuxia]

Well, here's where I am up to now. 

 

 

I started like this, using the two tips given above (or at least, my interpretation of them):

 

 

 

My plan is to trim down those wedges of plastic card that are filling those heinous gaps caused by my faulty cutting, then fill the whole thing with putty then sand it back.

 

 

[Alex1978]

Just found this WIP.

Looks very interesting,I will follow this build.

 

As the Hasegawa A320 is quite small,my hats off to you for converting this kit to a A319.

This might help me to overcome my worries of shortening one of my Hasegawa DC-9-40s...😉

 

 

[reini]

@bianfuxia Wow, that is basically build-your-own-kit  Good job so far.

[trickyrich]

what you did is not easy work at all. Rather than using sheet plastic inside for support/alignment bits of plastic strip, it might make those curved areas easier to deal with. 

 

Plastic to full the gaps is the right way to go for sure. For to final gap filling bit try using some tamiya epoxy filler. Members at my local club swear by it, you get a much better finish, it's stronger and best part no shrinkage, which certain types of paints will cause.

 

Bu it looks like your past the hardest bit, looking forward to your next update.

[bianfuxia]

Here's the latest progress. I am still hoping to get this finished before Christmas Day (it's a gift for my parents who loved their trip to the Faroes).

 

As a reminder, this is the plane I am building (you can see it at THIS LINK).

 

First go with the putty - I didn't have the epoxy filler but I have Tamiya Putty White. 

 

 

 

I did the first round of sanding with P270 to get it done quick.

 

Then some rounds with 1200 and then 1500.

 

Actually I think it's not too bad!

 

Then it was time to get going on the markings.

 

So I pencilled in the line where the blue area will be (at the bottom of the fuselage):

 

I made the line nice and dark, and then taped over it, so I could trim the tape along the curve:

 

 

Same deal with the engines:

 

And then:

 

Here it is next to an A320 I am also working on:

 

At first I wondered if I'd really made it short enough, but comparing photos again I think I have done it right. The A321 is a lot longer than the A319 is shorter. I have an A321 as well - pics of that next time.

 

Next steps:

 

blue spray on the unmasked areas tomorrow. Day after that (Christmas Eve) - spray the white. Early in the day! Then do the decals after the family is in bed on Christmas Eve (Santa Patrol!)

 

Meanwhile also paint the wings and u/c so they're good to go.

 

It'll be tight but I reckon I can get there.

 

[Alex1978]

Looks good so far.

I never heard of this airline before.

Simple but nice livery,your parents are sure happy to receive this model.👍

[trickyrich]

it'll be great to see some colour on her.

[bianfuxia]

Well, I basically finished this one. I didn't have time to post because of the pre-Christmas rush - I had a very intensive few days of work right up until the wire on Christmas Eve. I was up until 100am last night trying to finish this thing but in the end I couldn't. So then I found an hour or so on Christmas Day between various things and before we went to my parents for lunch.

 

But back to the beginning (since my last post, anyway).

 

After masking for the blue area, I sprayed with Tamiya TS-15 which turned out to be a good match for the blue on the real thing.

 

Apologies for the pics, everything was moving fast from here - like a BlitzBuild!

 

 

It needed two coats which I did during the morning of Christmas Eve.

 

 

Unfortunately there was some bleed here or there, not quite sure why. It was easy enough to clean up.

 

As soon as I dared, I masked off the blue ready for the white:

 

Meanwhile I also painted the wings. I did them with Vallejo Blue Gray Pale, which I am not sure was the best choice but I based it on the shade I saw in this photo. At this point my priority was to have it finished to give to mum and dad today. So I stuck with that.

 

A couple of blasts with Tamiya white towards the end of the day and it was ready for decals. I didn't start until quite late at night, giving it enough time to dry.

 

I then discovered the next challenge - the markings are way too big for the tail:

 

Also the OY-RCG is too large. I was concerned the tailplane would overlap it but I put it on anyway. The door decal is Hasegawa and even in this blurry shot you can see how much crisper it is. 

 

By 1am, I'd got to here and i realized i had to go to bed (I'd been up and going full pace on work or this since 6am) or I would not be able to perform Dad stuff for the kid at Christmas. As for many of you, no doubt, this year has sucked and I wanted her to have a lovely Christmas. So I hit the sack.

 

Today I got some time in early while the kid was still asleep and my wife went for a run and I continued on the decals.

 

We did our presents and had some breakfast and then I was here:

 

 

 

the undercarriage took about 20 minutes as it's quite fiddly. But then it was basically done!

 

Now, the left side windows are wrong, and I know I didn't fill the engraved two emergency exits and make it into one. I couldn't exactly figure out where the exit should be - was it one of the existing two or a new location?

 

The right side windows are more accurate based on the count I did from the photos. 

 

I haven't painted the nose gear doors white yet. And the ATLANTIC AIRWAYS writing is too big. And the grey detail on the pylons is simplified - there just wasn't time to do those fine details. I may take it back for a bit of a touch-up later.

 

 

 

 

(in a couple of photos the nose wheels are missing - they fell off during the outside photo-shoot and were superglued on about a minute before we drove to my parents' place).

 

 

in some photos it has FAROE ISLANDS written on the bottom here but the decal sheet didn't include that. It's also missing the wing walkway markings for the emergency exit - the Hasegawa A320 decals have two curved arrows - one for each exit - while a 319 (these ones at least) have only the one curved arrow and I didn't have time to do a chop-shop on that decal.

 

 

 

And it survived the trip - I lay it upside down in an open box and my daughter held it as we drove there - only a 5 minute drive. My parents liked it a lot and I explained the chop-shop conversion by reference to the large chocolate log cake thing we had for dessert

 

Here it is next to the Hurtigruten I built them last Christmas and the map I gave them once of the Nordic Arctic and sub-arctic regions they like so much:

 

 

They've been all up the coast of Norway on a Hurtigruten ship and also visited the Faroes and Iceland. Bearing in mind we live in Australia that is some commitment to those landscapes! 

 

For my first ever conversion and given the time constraints I am pretty happy with this one. I have a second kit and second set of the decals so in due course I will build one for myself using all the lessons I learned on this build. 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and thanks for your interest in this project!

Edited December 25, 2021 by bianfuxia

[CliffB]

This has turned out beautifully.  Great conversion work.  Congratulations!

 

 

[Grandboof]

Great work . The joints have blended well . Looking forward to the next one 

Martin H

[desert falcon]

Congratulations, she's looking great 👍

[Alex1978]

Despite the hurry you were in to finish it,its a fabulous looking little Airbus.

It sure makes for a wonderful christmas present/reminder of the holidays.

Very well done.

[trickyrich]

well done she looks great, and what a lovely idea for a Christmas gift!  

 

That conversion looked to go well form here, especially with the time constraints you had. I know you had some issues with the decals, but other than yourself knowing them, no one else would notice. 

 

All in all a lovely looking model, well done, you did a great job on her.  

 

I hope you enjoyed the build, great to have you along and to follow, now you can relax......... and can watch the Aust. Cricket team enjoy some bowling and batting practice!