New Collection Additions: December 2019

The end of the year saw a wide range of excellent releases and December had 14 of them joining my collection from 5 different manufacturers. With that many models it is little surprise that they weren't all great successes but still overall it was another good month for me.

Aeroclassics

Half of my new additions in December were Aeroclassics releases, from what was a very good selection of models. Only three 3 707s and the Avianca A320 didn't join the fleet this month.

 This is the list of additions shown above:

• Air BVI 748-101 VP-LVO
• Dan Air 748-232 G-AZSU
• Air Aruba DC-9-32 P4-MDD
• Indian Airlines A300B4-203 VT-EHD
• Southwest Airlines B 737-2H4 N21SW
• Transamerica Airlines DC-10-30 N103TV
• Trans International Airlines DC-10-30 N101TV

The releases this month included 3 models that were really important to my fleet (the IA A300, WN 737 and Dan Air 748) but the model I ended up being excited about the most was the Air BVI HS748. I love it when Aeroclassics makes unusual airlines and this one is excellent. There will be a forthcoming blog entry featuring this model soon covering Air BVI's history:

The Dan Air example is a major addition to the UK collection and I may do a full detailed review on this model:

The Air Aruba DC-9 was unexpected but turned out to be probably the best of the 7 models from AC this month. I'm really pleased with it:

Together the Air Aruba and Air BVI sit nicely and fill out a gap in my Caribbean / Central American fleet, which as you can see consists almost entirely of Aeroclassics offerings (the Air Jamaica 727 is Gemini and some of the 737s are SMA):

Elsewhere and the Indian Airlines A300 has been a long sought after model for me. It joins several other A300s from the same region (Air India, Iran Air, Mahan Air and PIA) on the West Asian shelf. I have already reviewed the actual model in detail and although not perfect it scores a decent 24/30:

Airbus Legacy: Indian Airlines Airbus A300B4-203 VT-EHD

Southwest Airlines has been a carrier of some interest to Aeroclassics of recent with 4 releases in as many months. I had been hoping that they would cover off the first 737s operated by Southwest that had the unusual titles. N21SW is one of these and although I'm still not sold on the colours, AC is using for the desert gold, it at least matches the previous 737s:

The remaining pair of new models cover the history of the DC-10 in the service of the large supplemental Trans International (later Transamerica). While it is hard to fault the mould the printing on the TIA example leaves a lot to be desired since both the tail and engines have very crooked text.

The Transamerica example is better and together they display nicely with the rest of the TIA fleet. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly, the colour of the single Gemini example (the 747) doesn't match at all with the rest (which are Aeroclassics).

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NG Models & Aviation400

For December from NG the arrivals consisted of a trio of Tristars, namely the pair of British Airways and the seond TWA twin-stripe. I had said I wasn't going to get both TWA L-1011s but when I saw the model and wrote about TWA's liveries my resistance folded. All three are excellent. 

There was also a single Aviation400 A350 that came this month too. The Cathay Pacific A350-100 is a very nice model and scored 28/30 in a detailed review:

Riding Out the Storm: Cathay Pacific Airbus A350-1041 B-LXI

One of the BA Tristars went two better and managed a 30/30 in its detailed review:

Molly McGredy: British Airways Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 1 G-BBAI

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JC Wings & Gemini Jets

The other three models purchased came from the factories of JC Wings. All were American narrowbodies. Two were from JC Wings, one of which, the delivery colours MD-90, had been announced many many months ago.

Both the MD-90 and 727 are likely to get detailed reviews in the next month. From what I see without looking too deep they both are quite nice, although the 727 has a somewhat pointy nose.

As it stands I won't be replacing my existing Gemini 727 in the same livery. Both display nicely next to each other on the AA shelf:

The last model for this month was the United 737-300 from Gemini Jets. I was not alone in being very disappointed with this model, which just scraped a 20/30 in a detailed review. I applaud many of Gemini's recent model release decisions but their finishing is sometimes poor. This is a model I would have preferred not to purchase in hindsight:

Tulip Trouble: United Airlines Boeing 737-322 N327UA by Gemini Jets

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Summary

Of this month's 14 additions only one was poor enough that I regret it. The best models are once again the NG Tristars but the Cathay A350 and Aruba DC-9 are outstanding too. Overall it was, in my opinion, a diverse and interesting month for the scale. January will feature less manufacturers than December and also a few less models, but not as few as my wallet would like.