NG Models / HYJLwings Bombardier CRJs Part 2: Chinese

Nowadays it seems that die-cast sales outside of China are often almost a backwater and many releases for the Chinese market don't even get announced outside of it. This is a shame as Chinese releases make up at least a 5th of all release nowadays I'd say. It seems that at the same time NG Models / HYJLwings were releasing their quartet of Canadians they also let out 4 Chinese CRJs too.

Regional aircraft have rarely been an important component of any Chinese airline, however there has still been a decent variety of operators and quite a few CRJ200 operators. These include Shandong Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, China Yunnan Airlines, Kunpeng Airlines and China Express. I have previously discussed the regional market in China across a three part blog series:

• Regional Jets in China Pt1: 1999-2003
• Regional Jets in China Pt2: 2004-2009
• Regional Jets in China Pt3: 70-100 Seaters

NG Models have chosen China Yunnan Airlines (and its successor China Eastern) as the subjects of 4 CRJs - three of which represent the same aircraft - B-3071.

China Yunnan Airlines took delivery of 6 CRJ-200ERs from November 2001. Aside from one these transferred to China Eastern when it acquired China Yunnan's assets and lasted until April 2013 when they were retired by the then China Eastern Yunnan Airlines arm of the company. They had been used to operate a thrice-daily air bus service between smaller cities like Baoshan, Lincang and Zhaotong as well as open routes to Chongqing, Tianjin and other destinations. They even in 2002/03 were used to open international services from Kunming to Mandalay and Rangoon.

They pleasingly wore some very nice special schemes - two of which are represented here. In fact I'd go so far to say these are nicer examples than the Canadian releases. B-3071 starts in the China Yunnan scheme and then wears the same special colours but in China Eastern colours, the first variant of which carries the Yunnan feather on the engines.

The second version is of B-3072 which wears a mountains scheme. This aircraft was actually tragically lost in an accident with the death of all aboard.

I expect because these are Chinese they won't be many Western collector's cup of tea, however I am seriously considering getting several of them since Chinese airline history fascinates me.