26Decals has re-released their United Airlines ‘Saul Bass’ cs artwork for the Boeing 767-200/300ER. The decal features a laser printed livery decal with a screen printed ‘details’ decal.
DRAW Decal began the week with a new decal for teh Spirit Airlines Airbus A.321NEO fleet. The decal is also available with included wing corogard.
Earlier today, I finished reading Mike Bannister’s recently published book “Concorde”.
The book reads as a biography. First of Mr. Bannister’s career with British Airways, describing his experiences as Concorde co-pilot, Captain, Training Captain, Chief Pilot, and more. It describes how Mr. Bannister worked hard not just as a pilot of Concorde, but in a management role to promote Concorde within British Airways, and to help lead the fleet of 7 aircraft to considerable profitability for the airline.
It also reads as a history of the Concorde, though with heavier emphasis on its service with British Airways, the 2000 crash of Air France flight 4590 at Paris, and its retirement in 2003.
In particular, the book leads the reader through the accident chain of events, explaining in clear and great detail how each incident and decision contributed to the accident. It also makes very clear, though without specifically saying so, that the French accident investigation process was highly flawed and I would say obstructive of properly determining the causes of the accident.
It’s a well written book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest, dare I say passion, for Concorde.
Separately, there is an excellent video on YouTube narrated by Captain John Hutchinson that describes the events of that terrible day. Mr. Hutchinson was also a long serving Captain on Concorde for British Airways, and has a wealth of knowledge and experience with the aircraft. Interestingly, Mr. Hutchinson was co-pilot on the BOAC 707 (G-ARWE) that crash landed at Heathrow on April 8th 1968.
First out of the gate this week is a release from 8ADecs. They’ve added a decal for the new Emirates A.380 scheme to complement their recent release for the Boeing 777-300ER.
8A144-825 Emirates Airlines (2023 cs) Airbus A.380-800
26Decal has released a new decal for the 1/144 scale Boeing 757-200.
TS44-1208 Delta Airlines (‘Ron Allen’ cs, 1997-2000) Boeing 757-200
Our latest kit offering features the 1/144 scale Eastern Express Boeing 747SP packaged with a 26 Decal.
These kits have been produced by X-Scale Models in the Ukraine.
They are available with your choice of decal by 26 Decal. The STS44 series decals feature a screen printed airline livery decal and a screen printed ‘details’ decal. The TS44 series decals feature a laser printed airline livery decal and a screen printed ‘details’ decal.
I am pleased to announce a new release in the AHS/JHeilig decal program. Now available is the final pre-merger United Airlines ‘Rising Blue’ decal for the Boeing 757-200, in 1/144 scale. As with previous releases in this series, it has been screen printed by Cartograf. Please see A4-310 to order.
Some, but not all airframes painted in this scheme were fitted with APB Winglets. A list of those requiring winglets is provided on the instruction sheet. All my research for this detail coming from images found on the internet, in particular http://www.airline.net. So, you can build your model with or without winglets. I recommend your verifying the registration you apply to your model with regards to this detail.
The tail decal proved to be very difficult to print. On the 1:1 aircraft, it is made up of a series of horizontal white lines, starting off wide and closely spaced at the base of the fin, and becoming progressively narrower and further apart as they rose up the fin. This is impossible to replicate in 1/144 scale.
So, we have attempted three options for the tail.
First, printed on the main sheet, is a screen printed blue ‘fade’, intended to be applied over a white fin. The left side came out perfectly, the right side came out with a noticeable color break about half way up the fin. Cartograf saw this, so tried printing the fins using a “dithering” method, again with a poor result. I am including this extra piece, however I doubt you will want to use it.
Now, as the tail decals are printed clearcoat-blue ink-clear coat, the left side tail could be applied upside down on the right side, so we have asked Cartograf to print an extra batch for us. The problem, however, is that with their upcoming plant summer vacation shutdown, we don’t expect to see them until late August. So, anyone ordering this decal before it arrives will receive this extra tail piece as soon as they arrive here.
The good news, however, is that I also enlisted DRAW Decal to assist with the tail. Greg has designed and printed a white ‘fade’ decal that must be applied over blue paint, which really is ideal as it guarantees that your blue tail will match the engines and lower fuselage. It is printed ‘double struck’ using his ‘Digital Silk’ print process, and the finished decal looks superb.
So, it will remain your choice as to which paint and decal option you use. Personally, I would lean towards the blue painted fin with the DRAW white tail decal.
N542UA ‘The Farewell Season’
As I researched this decal, I discovered that one airframe was painted to commemorate the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show. A modified tail and extra fuselage details were added, with this aircraft operating throughout the United Airlines network. This is available as a separate decal as A4-310A. It required A4-310 to provide the basic United scheme, sold separately.
Well, after many years of wanting to properly model the BOAC Super VC-10 that carried my family and I to Canada in 1969, I can finally do it.
26Decals has, for many years, produced excellent decals for the BOAC fleet. He’s released them all, the 707s, VC-10s, Super VC-10s and 747-100s. Even the pair of Viscount 700s that ferried passengers between Glasgow and Prestwick have been made available. All, however, used gold ink for the Speedbird, BOAC titles, and registrations. We’ve also included BOAC Cunard titles where appropriate. The photo below ( by J.Ferris on http://www.vc10.net) clearly shows the reflectiveness of the foil to great effect.
I must express my sincere thanks to Ray Charles at 26Decal for providing the necessary artwork, and to Jennings Heilig for preparing the artwork for printing, In turn, Cartograf has produced excellent foil decals for all the jets.
These decals are for the gold elements only, and all must ultimately be paired with the respective 26Decal sheet for the stripes, flags, doors & windows, etc. The good news is that if you have already built one of these models, these foil decals should be exactly the same size and shape as the gold ink elements, meaning you can go back and use the appropriate set to improve your model.
In our excitement to see this series finally coming to production, I went ahead and also produced gold foil decals for the ‘retro’ 747-436. After everything was already at the printer I discovered that even British Airways cut a corner on this one, and it appears they used gold paint instead of gold foil. By the time I realised this, it was too late to change the artwork (all were being printed on one large sheet and separated later). However technically, you can now be more accurate than British Airways, and produce your retro model more accurately than BA did!
Unfortunately my mistake had a ripple effect. Sheet size precluded including update sheets for the Vickers Viscount 700s. Perhaps if there proves to be sufficient interest, we’ll come back to this one at a later date.
A4-954 BOAC Boeing 747-136 (1/144 scale, requires STS44-374)
As I said above, it looks like I jumped the gun with the -400, as British Airways used gold paint for the gold elements. So, technically, the following two decals for the 747-436 are ‘flights of fancy’. On the other hand, they correct for what British Airways should have done. So…. you decide….
A4-955 BOAC ‘retro’ Boeing 747-446 (Flight of Fancy) (1/144 scale, requires STS44-328)
A2-955 BOAC ‘retro’ Boeing 747-446 (Flight of Fancy) (1/200 scale, requires TS20-096)
Finally, as 26Decal had not produced a 1/200 scale 747-136 decal, I asked and he produced the basic decal for me to which the 1/200 scale elements could be added.
So, unlike all the rest, this one is also offered as a complete decal, with the ‘base’ decal laser printed by 26Decal, and the gold foil elements added by AHS.
A2-954 BOAC Boeing 747-136 (1/200 scale) This decal provides the gold foil elements only.
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