1/144 Airfix 737-200

Gallery Article by Jessica Cooper on Mar 20 2013

 

 

The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range twin engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers.  The 737 is Boeing's only narrow-body airliner in production, with the -700, -800, and -900ER variants currently being built.  A re-engined and redesigned version, the 737 MAX, is set to debut in 2017.

The best selling airliner design in history, the 737 was almost cancelled.  In 1970, Boeing received only 37 orders.  Facing financial difficulties, Boeing considered closing the 737 production-line and selling the design to Japanese aviation companies.  After the cancellation of the Boeing 2707 SST and scaling back of 747 production, enough funds were freed up to continue the project.  There are, on average, 1,250 Boeing 737s airborne at any given time, with two departing or landing somewhere every five seconds. (history cribbed from Wikipedia)

The Airfix kit is almost as old as the 737 design itself.  First issued in 1969, it is typical of Airfix airliner models.  It's almost accurate, almost easily built and almost inexpensive.  The separate doors need filling, and if they're left open, there's no interior to show off.  There are no wheel wells, only shallow depressions.  Despite these flaws, the kit was the only early-series 737 available for nearly 4 decades, and still builds into an acceptable replica.  Out of the box it represents one of the first 200 or so 737s with the original narrow engine pylons.  Modellers wishing to convert it to the -200ADV version will have to find new engines, either from robbing them from an Eastern Express kit, or from Authentic Airliners. 

 

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I got this kit second-hand, without decals.  It had also been minimally started; the doors and wings had been glued.  I found an old Microscale decal sheet with Aloha and Air California options, and decided that I needed a bright, happy 1970s addition to my collection of cool, Corporate Euro-white liveried 737s.  The kit fits fairly well, except in this instance at the tail.  I'm not certain why, but this particular model didn't want to line up properly at the trailing edge of the fin and tailcone.  I had to do some fairly radical filing and sanding to get everything to match up.  I also took the opportunity to block the APU exhaust with a section of blocked off styrene tube.  I filed out the moulded-on (and mis-matched) APU exhaust port until it matched the outside diameter of a piece of tube, then solidly glued the tube in place.  Once the glue cured, I sanded it to the proper shape, restoring the tailcone to its proper appearance.

The remainder of the construction was fairly standard, except for an incident where I dropped the nearly complete model, chipping off the ends of a flap track fairing and thrust reverser.  I had to laminate pieces of plastic strip and sand them to shape to replace the missing parts.  At the painting stage, I forgot to mask a portion of the upper right wing, which required a quick paint repair.

Aloha Airlines operated between 1946 and 2008.  The 737 was the mainstay of Aloha's fleet between 1969 and 2008.  The short inter-island flights and constant exposure to salt air were major factors in a 1988 explosive decompression of an Aloha flight over Maui.  Amazingly the aircraft was landed safely with a large portion of its upper fuselage missing and only one fatality.  After this incident, many policies and procedures relating to aircraft usage and maintenance were revised worldwide.  During the 1970s, the airline used this colourful livery, and referred to their 737s as "Funbirds".  Each 737 was named for a Hawaiian King or Queen.  N73715 was named "King Lunalilo" according to Microscale's decal.

Jessica Cooper

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Photos and text © by Jessica Cooper