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Kar-Air Airbus A300B4 in 1/144 scale


Einar

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Airbus A300 was the first twin-engine wide-body airliner manufactured by the European consortium Airbus Industrie. The plane had its maiden flight in October 1972 and since then a total of 552 units were built. Finnair leased two Airbus A300B4's during 1986-98 and for some time they flew chartered flights to Southern European holiday resorts in the livery of Kar-Air (who were at the time a subsidiary of Finnair).

 

I had always wanted to build an A300B4 in the livery of Kar-Air which IMHO looked much more elegant than the Finnair scheme. Since in the aftermarket there were no decals available for that livery I asked my friend Laurent Herjean of F-RSIN if he could print me the decals. Well, he answered yes and now, in addition to me, there are a dozen of other Finnish modellers who have ordered those decals from him.

 

The kit is from Authentic Airliners in 1/144 scale. It's excellent as usual with perfect details and very good fit and there were no problems in building the model. In addition to the livery decals I ordered the cockpit and cabin decals from Authentic Airliners. I found out one curious thing concerning the cabin widows namely that the window row between the last two rear doors rises slightly upwards. This really beats me but the pictures and the cabin decals confirm this fact. Could somebody tell me the reason for this strange solution.

 

I painted the white fuselage with Tamiya Fine surface primer which I then coated with Tamiya gloss varnish spray TS-13. The wings and stabs were painted with Xtracolor X137 Canadian Voodoo grey and the coroguard with Xtracolor X5 (RAF extra dark sea grey). The metal surface of the engines was painted with Alclad Polished Aluminium.

 

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@Einar the A300 has long been a favourite of mine and one of my biggest regrets is never having had the opportunity to fly in one.  Your model , with its beautiful finish in the simple, elegant livery of an airline that seems to be little-remembered these days, has done the type justice and I’d be proud to have it on my display shelf.

 

The sloping rear cabin floor results from Airbus’ elegant upswept rear fuselage design and gives maximum possible floor width (and therefore number of seats per row) and rear hold volume all the way back to the rear pressure bulkhead.  All of the Airbus twin-aisle jets from A300B1 to A340-600 share this feature: the A350 was a “clean sheet of paper” design (after a bit of a false start as an A330 derivative) and is IMHO a bit less elegant than its forebears.

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3 minutes ago, stever219 said:

@Einar the A300 has long been a favourite of mine and one of my biggest regrets is never having had the opportunity to fly in one.  Your model , with its beautiful finish in the simple, elegant livery of an airline that seems to be little-remembered these days, has done the type justice and I’d be proud to have it on my display shelf.

 

The sloping rear cabin floor results from Airbus’ elegant upswept rear fuselage design and gives maximum possible floor width (and therefore number of seats per row) and rear hold volume all the way back to the rear pressure bulkhead.  All of the Airbus twin-aisle jets from A300B1 to A340-600 share this feature: the A350 was a “clean sheet of paper” design (after a bit of a false start as an A330 derivative) and is IMHO a bit less elegant than its forebears.

Thank you very much for your positive comments and the explanation to the sloping rear cabin floor.

 

Cheers,

Einar 

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Lovely work Einar! For a former Kar-Air air crew member it is nice to see "True Colors". I remember this Airbus well. I also remember the time when the pilots almost lost it flying this plane. They got something wrong with the autopilot and couldn't find out why the airplane kept trimming nose up. It was a very close call...

 

Cheers,

Antti

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9 hours ago, Viking said:

Oh yes! that is a thing of great beauty.

 

Cheers

 

John

Thanks John,

 

Einar

 

7 hours ago, RMCS said:

Superb finish 

Thank you,

 

Einar 

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6 hours ago, Antti_K said:

Lovely work Einar! For a former Kar-Air air crew member it is nice to see "True Colors". I remember this Airbus well. I also remember the time when the pilots almost lost it flying this plane. They got something wrong with the autopilot and couldn't find out why the airplane kept trimming nose up. It was a very close call...

 

Cheers,

Antti

Thanks/kiitos Antti!

 

I didn't know about the hair-rising situation. How did the pilots manage to correct the  problem?

 

Cheers,

Einar

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Hello Einar,

 

If I remember correctly it all happened in 1989 when this Airbus was on final approach for runway 15 at EFHK in strong crosswind and the captain executed a go-around starting roughly at 1000 feet. He pressed the TOGA -buttons on thrust levers and flying an A300 this meant a rather steep (and unpleasant to the passengers) climb. In his attempt to make the ride smoother the captain pushed the control yoke forward. This was something that made the autopilot to trim nose up even more. With full thrust and full nose up trim the captain had his controls pushed against the instrument panel and they were approaching stall pretty fast. Control was regained when captain ordered his first officer to manually set a nose down trim. The plane made a visual circuit and landed safely.

 

Cheers,

Antti

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1 hour ago, Antti_K said:

Hello Einar,

 

If I remember correctly it all happened in 1989 when this Airbus was on final approach for runway 15 at EFHK in strong crosswind and the captain executed a go-around starting roughly at 1000 feet. He pressed the TOGA -buttons on thrust levers and flying an A300 this meant a rather steep (and unpleasant to the passengers) climb. In his attempt to make the ride smoother the captain pushed the control yoke forward. This was something that made the autopilot to trim nose up even more. With full thrust and full nose up trim the captain had his controls pushed against the instrument panel and they were approaching stall pretty fast. Control was regained when captain ordered his first officer to manually set a nose down trim. The plane made a visual circuit and landed safely.

 

Cheers,

Antti

Holy sh''',

 

What a situation!!! Luckily enough they regained control of the plane!!

 

Cheers

 

Einar

1 hour ago, Remus389 said:

This beautiful model is a real eye candy.

 

Thx for sharing

Thank you Remus!

 

Einar

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That's really superb Einar. I think it's the first time I've seen a built Authentic Airliners A300 and it looks really good in the Kar Air livery.

 

All wide-bodies Airbuses except the A350 have the upward slope of the rear cabin windows. It's a unique and characteristic Airbus feature.

 

Dave G

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49 minutes ago, Skodadriver said:

That's really superb Einar. I think it's the first time I've seen a built Authentic Airliners A300 and it looks really good in the Kar Air livery.

 

All wide-bodies Airbuses except the A350 have the upward slope of the rear cabin windows. It's a unique and characteristic Airbus feature.

 

Dave G

Thank you Dave!

 

I've totally failed to notice the special upward sloping feature of the Airbuses. Thanks for telling me👍👍

 

Cheers,

 

Einar

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1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

What a beauty!

Thank you Bertie!

 

Einar 

47 minutes ago, Swamp Donkey said:

Don’t recall ever seeing this machine, but your rendition is lovely

 

SD

Thank you SD!

 

Einar

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3 hours ago, Einar said:

Thank you Dave!

 

I've totally failed to notice the special upward sloping feature of the Airbuses. Thanks for telling me👍👍

 

Cheers,

 

Einar

Thanks Einar. I should have said that the A380 doesn't have the upward slope either but I've never been a fan of the A380 so I tend to forget about it!

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53 minutes ago, Vesa Jussila said:

Really beautiful one. Once again nice build from you. I also remember this near miss in Helsinki. There was article about root cause in magazine Ilmailu after that.

Thank you / kiitos Vesa

 

Einar

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