Phoenix Finally Corrects Its A321 Wing

Phoenix have a strong following, especially in Asia, but have been losing ground in recent years to NG Models especially, but also to Aviation400, JC Wings and Panda Models too. One of the reasons for this has been their aging mould catalogue, which has largely been superseded by others. It had seemed like Phoenix was asleep at the wheel but it appears they have been jolted into action and fixed one of the most obvious mould issues they have had.

A Phoenix A321 in my collection

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The stature and orderbook of the Airbus A321 has grown massively in recent years so it is little surprise that its presence in 400 scale has also been increasing too. Phoenix have had their own A321 mould since 2013 (prior to that they used the old Gemini mould) but it has always had one major failing - the wings.

Above: The single slotted flaps of an A320 on the left and the double slotted flaps of an A321 on the right. Note how the A321 has many extra flap track fairings between the major ones to cater for the double slotted flaps.

I have discussed this point many times before in videos and reviews but the A321 has a different wing to the A320 in that it has double-slotted flaps. What does this mean in reality - well as you can see in the images above the A321 wing has a lot more flap track fairings for the extra row of flaps, producing more points beyond the wing trailing edge.

The wing of a Lufthansa A321 (own image)

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Phoenix never took this into account and their A321 mould has always used the A320 wing regardless of whether it had wingtip fences or Sharklets:

The Phoenix A321 is no worldbeater anyway but this was its biggest issue and one Phoenix didn't seem at all interested in fixing, even though all their competitors used the correct wing for their A321s (aside from Aeroclassics with their Sharklet version).

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Finally it seems however, that Phoenix have gotten the message and after 10 years of using the wrong wing for their A321s (and 92 releases) they have finally produced a correct wing on their latest release in the colours of HK Express:

Initial photos have appeared on taobao and they appear to show the wing of this A321-251NX with the correct wing:

Looking back over recent Phoenix releases and it actually appears several models have had the new wing. The earliest I can find proof for is the Air New Zealand all black version ZK-OYB from late 2022. The previous Condor editions look like they still had the wrong wing on them.

By my count that makes it 4 releases with the correct wing (Air New Zealand, China Airlines 'Pikachu, Korean Air and the Hong Kong Express). All of these models have Sharklets so it remains to be seen whether a correct version of the wingtip fence wing has also been produced.

Regardless, it is great to see Phoenix modify this aspect of the mould although somewhat ironically the very latest version of the A321neo (the XLR) reverts back to the A320 style single slotted flaps! Anyway, well done Phoenix.