It's Just Like Watching Peru

Latin classics always appear in high demand and until recently it has only been Aeroclassics that made them at all regularly. Now El Aviador is on the scene in 400 scale we can look forward to hopefully a lot more. Just recently there have been a selection of Peruvian releases and they have all sold like hot cakes. In fact, while people have zeroed in on that Gemini Delta CRJ I'd say it has been a lot harder to find a Faucett DC-8!

AeroPeru DC-8-62 OB-1248 ACOB1248 Aeroclassics

---

---

On a side note: There's a well known football chant of 'Just like Watching Brazil', which is sung in a sarcastic way by lower division football club fans when their team, or the opposition, does something well. Back when I was able to go and see the mighty Hornets play (that's Horsham FC) the hardcore fans sang a version that went 'PERU, it's just like watching PERU' because well Horsham, of the Isthmian Premier Division (that's the 7th tier of English football), could rarely muster looking like Brazil. Anyway with all due respect to the Peruvian national team it is always a chant that made me laugh and felt appropriate for the title of this blogpost.

Quite why Peruvian releases have been such hot sellers is something of a mystery. Perhaps they hit the sweet spot of being rather exotic, very colourful and under-represented? Either way they tend to sell out in a matter of minutes - so much so that Aeroclassics has said they will be re-releasing the pair of Faucett DC-8s from a few months ago.

Faucett Peru DC-8-51 OB-R-1223 AC419839 Aeroclassics

My Peruvian fleet now stands at 12 aircraft. There isn't really a special reason why I have so many other than the ones I mentioned earlier. I'm just a sucker for unusual liveries. Indeed I own only just over half the 23 models that have been produced anyway. Of these 19 have been made by Aeroclassics and the other four by Blue Box (although two were bizarre gold topped versions of the other pair).

---

---

Incidentally I have written about Peruvian airline several times on the avhistory blog showcasing some of these models. See the following posts:

• Covering Peru Like the Sun: AeroPeru in the 1970s
• ​​Unshining Path: AeroPeru in the 1980s
• ​Peruvian Tristars in the 90s: Faucett/AeroPeru's L-1011s
• ​Dutch Jungle-Jets: Aero Peru Fellowships
• ​Lunarejo's Courier: Aero Continente 

Aero Continente F28-1000 OB-1779-P ACOB1779P Aeroclassics

The latest addition to the fleet has of course been the AeroPeru F27 from May 2021's releases. It's a great little model:

AeroPeru F27-600 OB-R-1082 AC419935 Aeroclassics

It certainly goes well with the 727-25 in the same scheme released last year:

AeroPeru B727-25 OB-R-1081 AC419826 Aeroclassics

---

---

Of course I've also either missed out on or made the decision not to acquire quite a few other Peruvian releases - some of which I regret not getting now. Here's a list of the other Peruvian releases in 400 scale, which I don't own:

These are the ones I really should have got:

AeroPeru DC-8-62 OB-R-1210 ACOBR1210 Aeroclassics

AeroPeru DC-8-63 N795AL ACN795AL Aeroclassics

Oh well you can't have everything!

---

---

The Future

Of course 32 models doesn't represent the full splendour of Peru's aviation history so there's plenty left to make.

Here are some I'd like to see:

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Note the under-belly fairing on the L-1011 below:

RuthAS, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Christian Volpati (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2 ), via Wikimedia Commons

Kambui, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Christian Volpati (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2 ), via Wikimedia Commons

Alan Lebeda (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2 ), via Wikimedia Commons