There has been a lot of activity in the 747 classic space in the past year, but despite that the results have often been rather underwhelming. Hopefully, that will change in 2025 as although there have been over 1,100 releases for the 747-400 relatively few are on modern moulds (less than a fifth date from after 2018) and much of the recent subject matter has been made up of cargo airlines and secondary operators. There's certainly $ for anyone who can produce a high quality 747-400 and use it sensibly. HX Models are the latest brand to present a new 747-400, but is it as good as their series 100? Each review is to split into three key areas:
MOULD Aside from the mould under review here there are at least 4 active 747-400 moulds (excluding freighters) in 400 scale in 2025. These are of highly variable quality. The Phoenix mould is awful, the BigBird mould is definitely showing its age, the NG Lite is still a work in progress and only the JC Wings / Gemini version can really be considered a quality modern casting. I compared the four commonest 747-400 moulds available at the time back in June 2021: Since then, the BigBird mould has been used for some pretty awful Aeroclassics editions, but the majority of releases have been on the JC Wings mould, however all too often for obscure second-line operators. The JC Wings casting has had undercarriage issues, but the most recent version I reviewed was impressive: HX Models are filling out their 747 portfolio and started releasing series 400s in late 2024, although the subject material so far has been only Air China and Cathay Pacific. This 747-400 mould provides stiff competition to the existing JC Wings version and the updated NG mould, which we presume will appear this year at some point. As with the HX series 100 there isn't much to dislike with this series 400. For review purposes it is a shame that the livery here somewhat hides the mould and also that the cockpit printing on this model is at fault, but I'll discuss that more in a later section. The most obvious difference with the JC Wings mould is the length of the landing gear. The HX model is significantly higher off the ground, but then again the JC Wings mould has always suffered from being too low. Overall I prefer the taller gear and is slightly lower than the 747-100 version. Ideally the gear leg could be very slightly shorter, (other 747-400s sit halfway between the two), but it's less than a mm. The rest of the mould is effectively faultless and very similar to the equally good JC Wings version. The squared off wing join to the fuselage is tight and accurate. The rest of the wing has plenty of detail, including small touches such as the fuel dump pipe near the winglets. B-HOX was fitted with Rolls-Royce RB211s and the model has a nice hollow core mould for the engine nacelle and the correctly shaped engine pylons for that powerplant too. At the rear of the fuselage there is a very nicely detailed APU and this is one of the few areas where the mould is easily distinguishable from the JC version. On the underside there is plenty of moulded in detailing, the maingear pivots nicely and the noew customary triangular shaped standhole (with inner sleeve) is present. Mould detailing is finished off with 5 aerials (including two on the hump) and the small rear roof dome. This mould matches the JC Wings for quality and surpasses it in a couple of areas, such as fan blades and APU detailing. Both moulds are excellent and would score top marks if they didn't have issues with the landing gear height. To that end I'll knock a point off here. SCORE - 9 PAINT & LIVERY The 1991 build B-HOX was painted into this 'Spirit of Hong Kong' scheme in January 2000 and reverted back to standard CX colours in January 2004, serving for another 8 years before retirement in October 2012. The complex livery features a series of cartoon children against the backdrop of the Hong Kong skyline. HX have accurately reproduced the base colours of the livery - the dark green and light grey. Most of the rest of the colours are fine as well, with just the forward HONG KONG banner and the children faces being slightly darker than in the photos I'm seeing - such as here and here. The children and skyline themselves look good and I'm not going to count every single balloon and piece of confetti to check it's position is accurate! I can't see any major issues in the livery replication. SCORE - 9 PRINTING & QUALITY CONTROL So far, this model has scored very well so it is a shame that it falls foul of a real pet peeve of mine - cockpit placement. I don't always get involved in cockpit shape fights, but it does stand out to me on this model that the cockpit has been placed too high. Once again the amount is small, but it is very noticeable and in my opinion seriously compromises the model's look. See the below image for how I would prefer it was positioned: This is all the more frustrating as the position on the Air China releases HX has made appear fine. This isn't the only window related issue with the model. The real aircraft had a series of blocked out windows immediately aft of the L1, L2 and R1, R2 doors. The model does not take that into consideration and has a continuous windowline. It is rather sloppy to not have noticed. Printing detail is otherwise of a high standard and the model also has no QC faults. Pleasingly, the model does come with a plastic collector's card and also a stand. The only minus side is that the stand is the plastic style YY Wings seem to use, rather than the more attractive and better quality metal type HX use. Considering it's a free stand I can't really dock points for that! SCORE - 7 SUMMARY This release scores well and the basics of mould and livery are excellent. It is such a shame that the cockpit windows detract from the finished product so much for me. The position is out only by a tiny distance but this is the sort of thing HX need to catch if they are to really compete against players like NG. HX (and YY Wings) certainly have a highly competitive product offering (especially given the price point), but with their eyes seemingly focused almost entirely on the Asian market it remains to be seen whether this 747-400 mould is another false dawn, much like the JC Wings version has been to date.
FINAL SCORE - 25/30
3 Comments
Jim Kruggel
21/1/2025 03:20:25 pm
New 747 Classic and 747-400 moulds are welcome. I hope HX gets the cockpit windows corrected, and looks beyond Asia only. I'm looking forward to NG's "not lite" quality 747-100/200.
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EnterpriseH
23/1/2025 06:01:02 pm
I have a B-HOY and it have the same problem on the height of the windshield. Maybe I should just buy the Air China liverys...
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Gaz
24/1/2025 05:55:03 pm
The engine detail is impressive! have not seen yet a UK seller advertising pre-orders for this brand??? Alas JCW is doing this livery in 2025! JCW i think will be much better than the Phoenix one done a few years back! Seen some for sale on ebay and glad held out as now i know atleast 2 brands doing this livery much better done!
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AuthorI'm Richard Stretton an aviation enthusiast and major collector of 400 scale models. On this page I take a detailed look at new releases. This site is free. Please donate to keep it going.
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