Aeroclassics was well known for the secrecy surrounding its releases but no more! Not only are they advertising releases ahead of their release but they are now even two months ahead and so it was that whilst I was away on holiday the releases for December were announced. This bunch is an early Christmas present for prop-lovers across the world.
Prop-Heaven Pt1: Super Sixes
There has been a relative dearth of propliners this year and some discussion about their sales potential, but of recent Aeroclassics has been producing small numbers of their excellent DC-6 and DC-7Cs. This month however they have really rolled out the props with 7 sixes including several replacements for the old and outdated DC-6 mould from the early 2000s.
The releases are spread nicely geographically with a pair from Iceland – a country until very recently almost totally ignored in this scale, but now rather well covered.
- Icelandair DC-6 TF-ISC
- Loftleidir DC-6B TF-LLB
Also and more unusually there is a release for the the short-lived Finnish charter airline Finlantic, which only operated for two years with a pair of DC-6s.
- Finlantic DC-6 OH-DCA
In the rest of the world there is a delivery scheme CP and other sixes from Iran, Greece and Mexico. At least two of these (AM and OA) replace older releases of the DC-6:
- Aeronaves de Mexico DC-6 XA-NAM
- Canadian Pacific DC-6 CF-CZF
- Iran Air DC-6 EP-AEV
- Olympic Airways DC-6 SX-DAD
Prop-Heaven Pt2: Little Fokkers
The other prop mould to get a run out is the Fokker F-27 and the highlight for people in the Antipodes is surely the Air New Zealand version. Of course I imagine the Federal Express version will sell well too and you can’t have a month of Aeroclassics without something from Indonesia 🙂
- Air New Zealand F-27 ZK-NFF
- Fed Ex F-27 N709FE
- Merpati Nusantara Airlines F-27 PK-MFK
Bus Fleet Builders
The releases are rounded off with some nice fleetbuilder Airbuses. The pair of 1997 US Airways colours have been an obvious hole in the releases whilst 3 A319s make up the rest. These include both Royal Brunei and SAA companions to the A320s of the same airlines announced last month:
- Mexicana A319-100 N750MX
- Royal Brunei Airlines A319-100 V8-RBP
- South African Airways A319-100 ZS-SFG
- US Airways A319-100 N700UW (Darth Vader colors)
- US Airways A320-200 N118US(Darth Vader colors)
Summary
This is a pleasing month of releases, although I admit personally for me there is less than there has been of recent going to be joining my collection. That is not necessarily a bad thing considering the high recent Aeroclassics related expenses. Nonetheless if money were no object I would quite happily get 10 of these and I hope that 2017 continues to bring such a good mix of props and jets.
This is a very well-rounded set of releases for collectors in the areas of interest. The death of propliner models was apparently greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain might say. Good for Adrian and all of those who love this important period of airline history.
Surprisingly, according to DiMA, no one had done A319 / A320 in US Airways’ Darth Vader livery (how did corporate model-maker Gemini miss that one?) Better to have Aeroclassics do them. I just happen not to be in the market for them, hoping for AC to follow up with an A321 (which is the largest aircraft US flew to home ROC :+) ).
Also very good to see the F-27 mould out. No surprise that an Indonesian regional carrier is one of the choices, but all excellent. USA 70’s-80s local service carriers such as Midstate, Britt, Mississippi Valley, and Brockway Air would be welcome, too.
As long as Iceland is getting its overdue representation, let’s see the mid-1980’s Icelandic DC-10-30 as well!
Jim
The only issue – from a (fussy) collector’s viewpoint – of the new AeroClassics policy of announcing their new releases months ahead is that now we’re forced to make a buying decision based on artwork or prototype photos alone. Personally, I like to see photos of the actual MODEL I am buying before placing an order. Even AeroClassics have been known to make monumental stuff-ups with liveries, reggos, etc. If we wait until we can see whether the model is actually a faithful replica, it may have already sold out on pre-orders!! 🙁 I can imagine this will work a lot better for AeroClassics though – no forum critiques of their new releases right when they’re trying to sell them.
Your 400 scale propliners are tip top but too small a scale. Why you don’t manufacture 200 scale I would imagine is a licensing issue. However now that HM (who never did put out a quality product) is making solely military hardware there is a niche market?