To be honest some of last month's Aeroclassics turned out to be rather disappointing. The Aer Lingus and Fiji releases looked ok from distance but major colour issues whilst the Delta DC-6 had a crooked cheatline. Fortunately the Egyptair, BEA, Cayman, and Lufthansa releases were much better. Nonetheless although the quality has been on an upward swing of recent it is still a case of chance as to whether the end result from the factory is up to scratch. This month the focus is firmly on 767s with a couple of interlopers from their smaller cousin the 757. Smaller National 767s All this month's 767-200s come from well known but smaller national airlines from Europe or New Zealand. There is even a connection between the two with a leased NZ example with LOT titles.      The Air New Zealand 767 wears a different registration to the original Dragon Wings release. In general Aeroclassics seems to have worked out how to do the 767s nowadays with some success. The nosewheel is still too big and the cockpit and nosegear door printing a little too large but overall they are good models and a tempting bunch.  Israeli 757s Aeroclassics are strong supporters of Israel and they obviously still have a few of the 3,000 castings of the NG Models 757 they acquired lying around as this month we have two more EL AL 757s, to join the 3 other Israeli 757s they've already made. It could still be argued that the blues don't quite match but they at least match each other! Having said that you'd have to be a diehard fan to acquire all 5 of these surely?  Lockness Models Tristar 1s Lockness Models started making Tristars last month and to be honest the mould still needs a bit of work. Nonetheless they are producing popular liveries on the mould, which as I understand it, may see some small modifications soon. On the standard Tristar mould this month they release a pair of major North Americans. Following up last month's delivery colours it is now the turn of the 1980s colours for Air Canada.    Eastern Air Lines in the delivery scheme white hockeystick is an obvious release and this one looks pretty good. Both models still have cockpit windows that are too small but I am assured this will be worked on in coming months. Lockness Models Tristar 500s New for this month is the short version of the Tristar - the series 500. Lockness starts with 5 releases, again all North American. The livery selections are solid and the mould at least looks like it has most of the proper characteristics of the series 500. They also have modified larger cockpit windows, which look better than those on the series 1s, although sometimes the printing position isn't perfect.   They will make an interesting comparison with the Gemini Jets mould. I do have some reservations about them. The length of the undercarriage is again too short and I am concerned about the position of the nosegear, which looks a little too far aft. The United looks like it has the best cockpit printing. I await seeing them in person for the final judgement. Summary Aeroclassics and Lockness continue to release side by side and I think we all know why that is. What the releases share is a great variety of liveries and some decent moulds that could be improved further with tweaks to the landing gear and cockpit windows. There are still plenty of gems to be found among the releases.
1 Comment
ninja
18/5/2019 10:14:05 pm
I don't understand why AC insists on printing a window between the emergency exits on the 757 Leave a Reply. |
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I'm Richard Stretton, an aviation enthusiast and major collector of 400 scale model aircraft. This blog discusses ongoing events in the world of 400 scale. This site is free. Please donate to keep it going.
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