HYJLwings July Releases: Colourful A321s

Following on last month’s spread of alliance A321s HYJLwings continues to plough the same furrow but with a selection of more colourful examples. Yet again they do so by including a focus on Chinese examples but also by continuing an attraction to Lufthansa, which is also shared by Panda models.

By my count there were 21 new A321s announced by HYJLwings at the end of July alongside a handful of 757s. Once again, they manage this high number by having small production runs and by producing variants with minor livery changes or engine differences. Nonetheless the sheer number is impressive and at the time of writing 11 of the models are available, indeed 3 are winging their way to New Zealand presently.

For me the pick of the bunch is a pair representing a new airline in 1:400 scale – the startup Yunnan Hongtu Airlines. This private carrier began service from its Kunming hub in May 2016 and currently operates a pair of A321s and a pair smaller A320s. As is often the case in China it has a rather attractive livery I think.

B-300F with the old HNA logo

Also available are a trio of Beijing Capital Airlines A321s. Capital was barely represented in 1:400 scale a few years ago but now has a wide variety of Airbuses available (from A320s to A350s) partly because it has a high percentage of special liveries. The three aircraft here are two in the standard colours (one with the old HNA logo and one with the new) plus a special scheme advertising the holiday destination Boundary Island.

The HNA Group affiliate Tianjin Airlines also has a model in this month’s release in the Tianjin 2017 special colours. This has been on JC Wings announcement list for some time but the HYJLwings example will definitely be superior.

Wrapping up the Chinese entrants are Shanghai based examples for Juneyao Airlines (4 models) and Shanghai Airlines (2 models). Shanghai only operated a few A321s for a short period (see FM Superbuses: Shanghai's Short-term A321s ​) and one of these still wears its German delivery rego. Juneyao Airlines is a more substantial A321 operator and the examples here have different engines with the fourth in the attractive special scheme that has previously been released by Phoenix.

That still leaves 9 other A321s – 8 of which are Lufthansa examples. Only the two new colours versions have been released as of August 1st. Both have the same engines but one has a larger satnav dome. The other models are mainly special scheme variants.

The last model is a welcome Airbus house colours model from the 1990s wearing the rainbow Airbus house scheme and with the French rego F-WWIA. This one hasn’t been released quite yet either.