B-737-400, Aloha Airlines (1/144)
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Boeing 737-400 Registered as N401AL c. 1996.
(Minicraft kit #14499 ©2002, based on their 1998 tooling of the B737-300/400.
This aircraft, part of the "Classic" series of 737s, was delivered to Aloha Airlines in 1992 and flew with them for a number of years before being passed on to several other operators, eventually going into storage sometime after 2010. I flew in this airplane – or one just like it – when we lived in Hawaii leading up to Y2K.
I bought this kit at the base Hobby Shop in Norfolk, VA (yeah, base hobby shops were a thing!) when it was first released and stashed it for two decades before I brought it out of storage for construction.
The kit was pretty simple and surprisingly good, with rather excellent fit and good detail on the wing and engine pods, although the fuselage is devoid of detail save the APU exhaust and some heavy-handed trenches for the doors and overwing exits. Undercarriage was good although I chose to build an in-flight display. The clear canopy was a great drop-in fit, and the clever wing interlock made it easy to get the wings to agree. Still, I installed a spar of brass rod in both the wings and horizontal stabs to lend rigidity and to make it possible to tweak the dihedral angle.
The decals… <sigh> are Cartograph, beautifully printed and extremely thin, but with an affinity for the carrier paper that nearly made them useless. They refused to come loose and cracked when I tried to force them, even though I had applied two coats of Testors Decal spray. I had to harass each decal off the sheet, finally succeeding with the help of warm water. They turned out all right In the end, but what a pain!
Paints are WalMart rattlecan grey primer and gloss white, and Testors Model Master Acrylics for the trim colors.
