Air Baltic Boeing 737-300 in 1/144

[Skodadriver]

Continuing with my project of building a representative airliner from every current and former European national carrier, here is the Daco Skyline Boeing 737-300 in the livery of Air Baltic, the flag carrier of Latvia.  The model shows YL-BBL (formerly G-EZYJ of EasyJet) around 2016 with winglets and small fuselage titles but still retaining the cockpit “eyebrow” windows.

 

The Daco kit is well known and needs little comment. Construction was straightforward apart from the usual issue of wing fit. (For anyone interested my method of dealing with that is described here). I have never been convinced of the accuracy of the Daco winglets and for this model I used spares from a Zvezda 738. They are still a little too tall but not as badly oversized as the kit parts and I think they are an improvement.

 

Paint is Halfords Appliance Gloss White and Racking Grey. The green is a by-the-eye mix of Tamiya X8 and X15 plus a few drops of X1. Metallics are by AK Interactive, Revell and Tamiya.

 

Decals are by Drawdecal with Authentic Airliners windows and details from the kit sheet.

 

Thanks for looking and constructive criticism is always welcome.

 

Dave G

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kampartiger]

It's a beautiful,superbly done miniature of the real plane. Looks perfect to me.

[Vesa Jussila]

Looks really good. Not used too often this airline, but seen often these colours in Berlin. Today Riga airport is quite nice and in summer time old town is nice there.

[Wulfman]

A beautiful Boeing, great work !

 

Wulfman

[Maginot]

Very nicely modelled. Impressive, clean finish.

[Abandoned Project]

Very nice. Well done on the green mix, looks good. 

[Roger Holden]

Lovely clean job.  I'm pretty sure I have a Daco kit of the -500 variant which came with those exact same decals.

[kapam]

Superb!

Almost inspires me to drop scales and collect a bunch of these airliners, but my missus would murder me.

But, I will use it as inspiration when I start on my BPK kit (737-800)!

Fantastic work!

🙂🙂

[chrispisme]

Well done!

[Viking]

Another little beauty Dave, I think you are right about those winglets, they do look better than the Daco ones. Although a simple livery it is actually quite smart, I like it.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Malair]

Beautiful as always Dave! That's a very nice looking 737. Did you use decals for the leading edges (as they are provided with the DACO kit), or did you airbrush them?

[Skodadriver]

Thanks for the likes and comments everyone - much appreciated!

 

On 12/22/2021 at 11:06 PM, Roger Holden said:

... I'm pretty sure I have a Daco kit of the -500 variant which came with those exact same decals.

 

Thanks Roger. The Daco -500 kit gives you the choice of the green tail or the earlier "Dancing Lady" livery. I did think about adapting the decals from the -500 I have in my stash but I was ordering some other stuff from Greg Drawbaugh and decided just to get his -300 sheet while I was about it. 

 

On 12/23/2021 at 12:57 PM, Malair said:

 Did you use decals for the leading edges (as they are provided with the DACO kit), or did you airbrush them?

 

Thanks Martijn. Yes, I used the Daco decals on the leading edges apart from the fin which I painted. Leading edge decals are sometimes more trouble than they are worth but the Daco 737 ones work well in my experience.

 

Dave G 

[BluesModeller]

Superbly done!

[Marc the Builder]

Looks very convincing, great job!

[phil1]

I need to get back in the game as I'm missing great builds like this. Always look forward to seeing your finished builds and this is no exception! I love the bold yet simple livery of air baltic. 

 

Phil

[Tiger331]

Great job. I travelled on these quite a lot before they were withdrawn from service. That Green mix looks spot on to me and is very close to the real thing.

 

Well Done, Sir !