Short Stuff: A 737-600 Wishlist

​Recently Panda Models have presumably leveraged their existing 737-700 mould to produce its shorter stablemate the series 600. The type was thoroughly unloved and therefore the number of operators of the type was limited. Panda have already made 5 737-600s covering SAS and Air China but there is a small group of further series 600s that can, and ought, to be made.

The Panda 737-600 mould

​Out of over 7,000 orders for the 737NG only 69 737-600s were built. Really, you’d only want it for commonality if you already had the larger 737NGs, as it had issues common to most shrinks – it was too much of an airplane for the job. In fact, the series 600’s primary claim to fame is probably helping to kill off the superior, but orphaned, Boeing 717 (aka MD-95). 

​Many of the 737-600s built have had short careers and, like the similarly unloved A318, many have been scrapped after only a decade or so (sometimes less). That means there isn’t a large pool of secondary operators either as on the seconds market airlines are better off picking up 737-700s and A319s (and even they are nowadays almost worth more as spares).

​Anyway, onto the (short) list:
 
A near certainty I’d have thought is China Southwest Airlines whose 3 aircraft went to Air China:

​Other primary operators are well outside of Panda’s usual geographic range but there’s no point in creating a new mould if you’re not going to use it (is there Gemini?). So we have:

RAF-YYC from Calgary, Canada [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

John Taggart from Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

​On the secondary market there are not many contenders. In fact, the only ones I can find that are worth doing are:

EG&G 'Janet' the Government deportation airline

And that is that. Not a great return for a mould but it is good to have more obscure models of airliners covered in 1:400 too.