Panda Models: January 2019 Releases

The Chinese New Year is almost upon us, which means there'll be a lot less models for a month or so until the whole of China gets back to work in March! In the meantime though Panda Models have not been sitting still and instead have released their December models and announced their batch for January, most of which are already on sale as well. Let's take a look.

Here are some of the December releases as finished. The Easyjet A321s can't help but be popular, whilst I myself have an NZ A321 en-route which'll get a mould review at Diecast Flier. Clearly the Panda mould is superior to the Phoenix one but is it as good as the HYJLwings? Not sure.

The pair of Air Asia X A330s also look quite nice:

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Year of the Pig

Being almost Chinese New Year it is time for Panda's model celebrating that. They usually choose a new mould and this year it is the 737-600s turn to take its place alongside previous A320, 737 MAX-8 and ARJ-21 New Year models. Below are the previous new year models for 2016, 2017 and 2018.

This year's piggy 73F:

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600s Keep Coming

As I predicted and hoped for Panda continue to expand on their 737-600 collection with the obvious (and most welcome China Southwest examples) plus a couple of Austrians too. With Panda's new found interest in European models it can't be long until most of the wishlist is made:

Boeing 737-600 Wishlist

The China Southwest pair complement nicely the previous Air China pair - all four having served with both airlines.

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A MAX and A321s

The rest of January's models use the new A321 mould along with a solitary 737 MAX-8. The A321s are especially interesting and one represents the first A321CEO for Panda. Neither of the S7s are out as of yet.

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SUMMARY

Panda Models narrowbodies continue to be superb and with more European releases (especially Easyjet and BA) they are beginning to make a name for themselves in the West. They are however still hard to come by outside China but there is a good sprinkling of high quality releases that mean they often deserve to be sought out.