US Deregulation era airlines from the 1990s have been curiously rather ignored in 400 scale throughout its history. So there's no Vanguard, Legend, Morris Air, Eastwind, Pro Air, Win Air or Midway, and since after 2005 precious little Valujet, Western Pacific, Frontier, National, Air Tran or Carnival. Reno Air is another one of these airlines, and this model is the first Reno Air example in 20 years, and the first MD-90. Definitely worth a closer look then.
Each review is to split into three key areas:
MOULD
There have been 47 MD-90 releases in 400 scale to date, but 15 of those are Jet Hut / JAL Collection examples on their surprisingly decent, but simple, mould. Dragon Wings and Jet-X also had a mould, but used it only twice, in 2004, and BlueBox also used a mould for 5 releases in 2008.
The remainder of releases have used a variant of this mould, which seems to have first appeared as a Phoenix mould in 2005. It was used by them only 8 times in 2005 before reappearing in 2013 with Gemini Jets (and later JC Wings).
I would argue that this mould is better than the Gemini MD-80 mould (which is newer), but because this is older it has some older features. Obviously, they bear a passing resemblance to each other, but the MD-90 has a longer fuselage, different engines and tails, and a new vertical stabiliser unit - so little is shared between the moulds.
It is however at the nose and cockpit that this mould has the clearest difference with the MD-80 mould. It isn't perfect, but it has a better shape, although it isn't helped out by the nosegear. The updated nosegear on this version seems too small for the hole for it and the gear doors are rather recessed. Too much gear leg is visible and the whole thing would probably be improved with a larger gear door (which ironically it used to have).
The rest of the fuselage barrel works well and the wings have a tight fit. The wing/fuselage seam lines are so subtle here that you barely notice that it is a cradle mount mould unless you look underneath.
The big IAE engines and chunky pylons look good but could do with more detailing. They lack the unusual pylon flaps they should have and the stabilising fins on the lower side of the nacelles should be larger. The vertical stabiliser is well shaped and the only complaint is that the horizontal stabs are one piece and so there is a seam at the tailtop.
The old mould has been updated over the years with rolling gear and a dorsal aerial, and altogether it displays nicely as a modern mould despite its long ancestry. While that ancestry means it can't escape some old features, like seamlines and slightly simplistic shaping at the nose and engines, it is a reliable and effective casting.
SCORE - 7
PAINT & LIVERY
Reno Air had one of the best liveries of the 1990s. It advertised its five MD-90's quietness for flights into noise sensitive airports like Orange County but also in this case with N905RA to advertise the skiing opportunities in the Lake Tahoe area close to its Reno homebase.
This was done quite subtly with titles on the engines, and a skier (starboard side) or snowboarder (port side) on the usual mountains on the tail. Largely, the livery replication on this model is exemplary. The placement of the titles, green colour, belly print and tail logos are faultless.
Special mention must go to the details on the snowboarder and skiier figures, which have excellent detail in close-up. There are a couple of points of criticism. The model has the tail background colour as a grey, but photos show that it should be silver like the 'Air' titles. Secondly, and a lot less important, photos suggest that the reg is present on the nosegear doors. It is tiny, but is missing on the model.
​SCORE - 8
PRINTING & QUALITY CONTROL
There's plenty of detailed printing on the model of a high quality. It does feel like the cockpit printing is a little low, but that might be a result of the shape of the mould's forehead.
There are a couple of minor print imperfections also. The inside of the portside engine has not got the same level of dark grey print as the right and in close-up there is a small smudge above the windowline forward on the starboard side.
Build quality wise, everything is in the right place, although under magnification the nosegear is a little untidy.
SCORE - 9
SUMMARY
Every now and then Gemini slip out something a little more classic than the usual flow of modern AA, UA, DL, EK, LH, KLM and BA. When they do it feels like the Gemini of 2004 who produced a lot more of this kind of model. Then again that was 20 years ago so Reno Air was a lot more contemporary then. Regardless, this is a very welcome model especially as nobody else has the MD-90 aside from their production partner JC Wings. Great model.
FINAL SCORE - 24/30
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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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