Aeroclassics/Panda Models B-Reg A320s - A Review

Aeroclassics has the finest A320 mould. This statement would be in almost no dispute if they fixed the nosegear tyre size and perhaps started adding antenna, but even so personally it is my favourite of the available A320 family mouldings. As always with Aeroclassics they have made good use of the mould but there are still lots of A320s to do. With Panda Models now competing for Chinese releases using the same mould here is a wishlist of B reg A320 family aircraft still to be made.

Aeroclassics Output

As of March 2016 Aeroclassics have made 50 A320 family aircraft registered in the Chinese mainland. The breakdown is as follows in the table on the right. As you would expect the bulk of the releases represent examples from the big 3 Chinese airlines. There is a good diversity though there has been a fair amount of repetition also (China Southern A320s for example). Some of these releases are quite hard to find nowadays. I didn't even realise there had been Shanghai A321 releases! Aeroclassics have also produced 4 Hong Kong B-reg A320 family aircraft.

Right: China Mainland Aeroclassics A320 releases >

Below: Hong Kong Aeroclassics A320 releases

I currently only have 16 of the Aeroclassics releases, partly because I have come to the party late and find myself playing catch up. Though I've been able to find some there are quite a few (Capital, Deer Air, Shenzhen, Shanghai etc) that have so far eluded me.

Enter the Panda

Regardless of the rights and wrongs you can't ignore that Panda Models has itself recently begun to use the same mould as Aeroclassics. So far they have only used the A320 itself and made 5 releases including a Chinese New Year fantasy model.

Still To Be Made

New Chinese operators are appearing at regular intervals and as you'd expect quite a few are operating A320 family aircraft. There is also still fertile ground amongst older Chinese airlines for releases of A320 family aircraft. Here is a selection of what I'd like to see. Who will get to them first Aeroclassics or Panda Models?

The Gone
First there are some older airlines that have disappeared or no longer operate under these names. CNAC Zhejiang was merged into Air China in 2003. The other three were all mid-2000s start-ups which struggled. East Star Air is one of the few Chinese airlines to have ceased operations, whilst United Eagle became Chengdu Airlines and Northeastern Airlines became Hebei Airlines:

CNAC Zhejiang Airlines A319 & A320                                                           

East Star Air A320                                  United Eagle A319                                Northeastern A319

New Arrivals
Several recent start-ups have chosen the A320 series. Qingdao Airlines is a JV with Air China whilst Loongair and Yunnan Hongtu Airlines are both private:

Qingdao Airlines A320                          Loongair A320                                       Yunnan Hongtu A321

The HNA Group
Several airlines within the Hainan Airlines group including the parent have operated A320 series aircraft. A couple have seen releases but there are lots left including a raft of special schemes from Capital Airlines and Tianjin Airlines:

Capital Airlines standard and special schemes

Tianjin Airlines A320 and various Special Clrs

Lucky Air A319 and A320s (3 schemes)

West Air A320s (3 schemes)

Shenzhen Airlines
One of China's largest airlines it has been largely ignored in 1:400 with both Aeroclassics releases in Star Alliance rather than standard colours. Here are four possibilities. JC Wings has at least done the new colours A320:

Still To Be Made On This Mould

Obviously Aeroclassics isn't the only game in town and Phoenix and JC Wings have made quite a few B-reg A320 family aircraft themselves. The above wishlist doesn't include any of these but it would be nice to be able to standardise the A320 fleet. Among this group there are airlines like Spring, Chengdu Airlines, several China Eastern special schemes, Hong Kong Express and Sichuan Airlines.

After all you can never have enough B reg Airbuses!!! :)