Not B4 Time: An A300 Wishlist

​There have been nearly 260 A300s made in 1:400 scale with 159 of them coming from the excellent Aeroclassics mould. Unfortunately the rest have been mainly on the pretty dreadful Phoenix and Jet-X moulds. You might think that there weren’t any worthwhile A300s left to be made aside from obscure freighters, but you’d be wrong there are still plenty. 

​The Aeroclassics A300 is an excellent mould, albeit one that is still cradle mounted. This may be an issue for some but the seam is a very minor inconvenience considering how good the model is overall. Slightly more troublesome is that sometimes Aeroclassics has printed the passenger window line too high.

Even so the Aeroclassics A300s blow all other competitors out of the water. See my mould review for more details:

Airbus A300 Mould Review

Sadly, it hasn’t been since 2015 that the Aeroclassics mould has been used, hopefully it is still available to produce some of the following 22 examples. ​What follows are 22 of the most deserving A300s left to be made starting with 3 G-reg examples.

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United Kingdom

​I’m not sure why but Andrew doesn’t seem keen on British airline releases. It’s a real shame as I think G-regs should sell well as long as Aeroclassics doesn’t rely on the old fashioned and rather unreliable ARD for its sales. There are plenty of other avenues. 

Ralf Manteufel [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

​Laker is a real standout missing A300 operator. They acquired several A300s towards the end of their operations as Freddie Laker prepared to take his Skytrain to Europe.

Pedro Aragão [CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

​Orion Airways was a significant and much-loved British charter airline that operated from 1980 until its takeover by Britannia in January 1989. For the last two years of their existence they operated a pair of A300s.

Ken Fielding/https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

​Air Scandic always seemed like a rather anachronistic charter airline given it was operating old A300s in the 1990s in aa rather odd retro-livery. Definitely worth a punt though.

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Mainland Europe

​The A300 was popular amongst European charter airlines and although Condor, Hapag Lloyd, Germanair and others have been covered where are these classic major charter airlines:

• Conair
• Kar Air
• Scanair
• Trans European Airways

Ken Fielding/https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Pedro Aragao [CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pedro Aragão [CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

​On the scheduled side Luxair also operated a single ex-Singapore A300B4 for 3 years in the 1980s.

Aviation Photography of Miami [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

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North America

​Airbus struggled for a while to get its products into the USA but it wasn’t just Eastern and Pan Am that used the A300. ​For a while in the early 1980s Northeastern looked like they could be a contender amongst the deregulation startups. Four A300s flew with them during 1984.

Udo Haafke [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

​Carnival Airlines flew for 7 years from 1990 and in that time it operated 10 A300s before being turned into Pan Am II. Dragon Wings have made an example but their mould isn’t really competitive.

Torsten Maiwald [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

​TAESA of Mexico (an Aeroclassics favourite) operated a pair of A300s for a year or so in the mid-90s.

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Africa / Middle East / West Asia

During its latter days the A300 found a ready market amongst scheduled and charter airlines alike in the Islamic countries. In recent years Iran in particular has been a major operator of the trusty A300.

• Onur Air (original colours)
• Akdeniz Airlines
• ZAS Airline of Egypt
• Meraj Airlines EP-SIG Cheetah
• Saha Airlines

Alain Durand [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Dmitry Terekhov from Odintsovo, Russian Federation [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Shahram Sharifi [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Asia

​There are still some classic A300s missing from the Asia region. Toa Domestic, Air India and Air Siam would I’m sure all sell well. Plus seeing as I collect Chinese airliners I’ll throw in a couple of freighters too:

• Indian Airlines
• Toa Domestic
• Air Siam
• Air Macau
• Air Macau Cargo
• Uni-top Airlines

Mark Tang [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons