Finnair ERJ-190 references

Here are some photos of Finnair Embraer ERJ-190LR OH-LKI (& -LKL, LKO, -LKR) taken in June 2019. A new  1/144 Revell #03937 project, perhaps?

BMW 3 Series 4-Door Saloon E36 318i Hasegawa 1/24 CD46

And now something completely else. Hasegawa’s excellent BMW 318i kit with custom features like M3 front bumper, BBS BMW M3 resin aftermarket wheels, Angel Eyes headlights and Finnish registration plates. Based on a real 1995 vintage vehicle with these customizations.

The original E36 318i isn’t street legal any more, it is converted to a track racing machine but this scale model is a nice memento of a pleasant summer cruiser like it used to be.

BAC707 is RAL 7047 “Telegrey 4”

Here’s my unscientific reference for the BAC707 / Boeing standard grey, the RAL 7047 “Telegrau/grey 4” color chip photographed at a distance of 120 centimeters is pretty much the same as a BAC707 grey on a (Norwegian) Boeing 737-800 at an altitude of 10.000ft. Both the airplane and RAL chips were photographed within 20 minutes time, at indirect sunlight around noon, the camera facing westward and the Sun on the left. For additional reference there is a linear gradient from RGB white to RGB black, too.

And yes, the XtraColor X150 FS16515 AWACS/Canadian Voodoo is likewise pretty much the same colour as RAL 7047. Maybe not 100% exactly and absolutely same hue, but more than close enough for my scale model purposes.

Kar-Air DC-3A-214 (built 1937, c/n 1975) OH-VKB Cockpit & Interior (Finnish Aviation Museum, Vantaa)

1:200 Finnair DC-10-30 OH-LHD

Hasegawa 1:200 #Lc4 McDonnell Douglas DC-10 kit (Northwest Orient version) with modified Classic-Airlines.com #CA200-065 Finnair decals. Pretty much out-of-the-box except new intake ducts made with putty (engines #1 & #3) and superglue-impregnated paper (engine #2).

Classic Airlines decals were otherwise fine, but the cheatline is too narrrow and the blue colour is way too light for Finnair 1970-1990’s blue. I made a homebrew mix of Tikkurila Miranol enamel blue (the darker version) with a little dab of Revell #50 Gloss Blue. Revell #52 blue would be an option to use instead of Miranol, but I think it’s a bit too dark and less saturated. I tried to match my mix to the unrestored and original Finnair Convair 440 Metropolitan blue at Finnish Aviation Museum, Vantaa and I think it’s pretty close. The original Douglas paint code for Finnair Blue is DN9835, if that’s any help for someone.

The cheatline is painted, likewise the larger decals like Finnair titles and blue tail cross were overpainted for a darker blue. The small Finnair engine titles and registrations are original decal blue.

This is the 2nd livery for Finnair DC-10 used late 1980’s, the original was with a grey belly area and the final 3rd without blue cheatlines and tail cross.

Some references

Finnair liveries (Bruce Drum)

Finnair OH-LHD (Airliners.net)

Work in progress -photos

Original Finnair blue cheatline in front of Convair Metropolitan L2 door w. RAL color chips, the shade is somewhere between RAL 5015 Himmelblau and RAL 5017 Verkehrsblau.

Douglas Jetliners in 1/200 scale (Hasegawa)

From top to bottom: JAL MD-90, JAL MD-11, Korean Air Lines DC-10-30 and SAS DC-9-40

Left to right: SAS DC-9-40, Korean Air Lines DC-10-30, JAL MD-11, JAL MD-90

Japan Airlines MD-11 and MD-90

SAS DC-9-40 and Japan Airlines MD-90

Hasegawa 1/200 Japan Airlines MD-90 JA8070

This Limited Edition JAL MD-90 kit had both good and bad design novelties, horizontally split fuselage eliminated the dreaded roof seam and fuselage bulkheads kept the cylindrical nose weight tight in a compartment of its own. On the other hand there were serious sink marks along the internal bulkhead lines that were hard to fill and smooth out. The fuselage seam wasn’t too well aligned either as the roof part was slightly wider than the lower part.

Decals and surface details were very fine, so I guess the final result is quite okay. But I’m not in a rush to find another MD-90 kit for Blue1 aftermarket decals, which was my original plan.

Hasegawa 1:200 Scandinavian Airlines System McDonnell Douglas DC-9-40 LN-RLD ‘Torleif Viking’

Hasegawa 2nd hand 1:200 kit, Lima November Limited Edition SAS decals. Very fine but delicate and fragile decals, had to use Microscale Liquid Decal Film against the decal instructions and ruined some window decals in the process but fortunately there were lots of spares. My tip: brush or spray gently and absolutely only once and leave it at that! The printing ink is quite easy to smudge.

After the Micro Liquid Decal Film there were no problems with further acrylic and enamel clearcoats (gloss and satin).

Screenshot: FinnComm ATR-72 OH-ATJ at EFJY in X-Plane 9

Here’s another kind of scale model: blade element theory -based flight simulation X Plane 9 and the freeware ATR-72-500 at EFJY scenery. This FinnComm livery skin repaint I’ve done myself isn’t ready yet, there are many details to be finished and fixed but the overall impression is ok, I guess. Why X-Plane 9 then? Well, it runs very nice on my basic Ubuntu Linux notebook and the flight model should be quite fancy for a simple home computer simulator. I’m not really into flight simulators, but sometimes it’s rewarding to tinker just with computer models and paint software.

Revell E-3 AWACS 1/139 conversion to Pan Am Cargo Boeing 707

This Pan Am Cargo B707 was built several years ago, later it started missing landing gear and other little bits so I fixed it back into the old glory. A nice looking model for an old Revell kit, isn’t it? Well, it’s far from perfect because a) the original plane was a Boeing 707-321 while the original Revell AWACS E-3 kit is kind of 707-120B-ish. If that wasn’t enough, the b) registration and other decals are from a Minicraft DC-6 Pan Am kit, so the reg should be really N462PA, not N731PA as in this kit. Besides c) the cheatline blue and tail Pan Am logo globe blue doesn’t match anymore as the color has faded and mutated into something else, though it’s unlikely that it was anywhere near a perfect match in the first place. And d) the Clipper Miles Standish used to be anything but a Boeing 707, like a B747 or A310.

Still, I love this model and it brings happy memories when building a civil airliner model wasn’t always about counting rivets and fussing over minute and irrelevant details. Most of the people would recognize this plane as a Pan Am Jumbojet anyway…

Oh, and I do have a scale model of the correct Clipper Miles Standish, it’s the Revell Airbus A310 “billboard livery” at the bottom of this post!