First Look: Panda Tu-204s

It was just a couple of weeks ago that I was surprised by the Panda announcement of their own Tupolev 204 but at the time it was reasonably clear the models themselves must be almost ready. That has turned out to be true and here are the first photos of the finished articles.

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It is always slightly hard to tell from a small number of photos from limited angles but I feel comfortable saying that this definitely isn't the NG mould being reused and Panda have created their own version of the type. I can say this not only due to the enmity between NG and Panda but even from these shots there appear to be some obvious mould differences. Here is the NG mould sample:

The NG Models Tu-204 Mould sample

The differences I think I see relate mainly to the engine pylons and vertical stabiliser. It is hard to tell but it looks like the pylon/engine join is different and the Panda engines hang a little lower. At the tail the fuselage join line of the vertical stabiliser looks longer.

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Oleg Belyakov, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons

In general I'd say the Panda mould looks very good but from these angles anything but general comments are hard to make with certainty. Here are the 3 models:

I'm not sure whether I'll get any of these models myself as although I'm a big fan of the Tu-204 none of these three match my collecting criteria. Personally I'd prefer RA- registered 204s in passenger airline colours. I might pickup the Korean version however and if I do I'll definitely take a closer look. Presumably these three releases will be out soon - shipping troubles willing.

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