Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! I can't answer for sure, but I suspect that the second photo might have been a thrust reverser grille cover that slid back exposing the grille when reverse thrust was selected, and then was deleted after service experience showed it to be a maintenance headache and that it was not necessary for drag reduction anyway. I would say that the first photo showing the exposed grille became the norm after that. Note also that there is a flat blocker plate in the middle of the grille. That is put there to direct the reverse stream downward and upward out of the horizontal line of the engine

Hello Don, I searched as best I could without destroying the carefully stacked piles in the basement, but since those kits were bought ten+ years ago, I'm sure that they are not going to come out of hiding very easily. I seem to recall only two issues of the -420, a Lufthansa -430 and a British Airways -436. Since those 707 kits were such a disappointment, I didn't buy many of them. The Braniff issue was supposed to be a -327C, but it was issued as a -320 with the wrong wing and JT4A engines! My recollections were that those "Conway" engines were not perfectly accurate, but could be salvaged

Hello Don, Oh no, do NOT buy an Airfix 707-420 just for the tailpipes/suppressors! It is not worth it. You should be able to find photos somewhere...... I don't have a Minicraft -420 at hand right now, but I'll see if I can find one somewhere as I know I have a few. I don't remember how they were, but generally, those kits were not good at all, mostly because the nose section was so bad. If it were possible to marry the Minicraft wing and the Airfix fuselage, then possibly you might, with a lot of work, be able to produce a decent model of a 707 Intercontinental. Then again, at some point you

Hello Don, You'll also have to take into account the slightly different shape to the pylon on the Conway. For the 707 installation, Boeing used a RR provided sound suppressor which consisted of slotted petals instead of tube shapes as on the Pratts, whereas Douglas used their own design for the DC-8-40 series with an ejector assembly and a smaller chin scoop than the JT4A engines had. While the Conway had a suppressor, I found it to be the noisiest 707 variant. See if you can find photos of the tailpipe on the Conway powered -420, and if not, the tailpipe of an Airfix 707-420 kit has the corr

Greetings! The engines in the Roden kit you mentioned are way oversized (wrong) JT3C-7 engines, and the engines in the photos are not from a 720, but a 720B and are JT3D-1 engines, which are turbofans. You might be able to take those oversized JT3C-7 engines and rework them into some kind of Conway Mk508 for a 707-420, but I'd guess they might still work out to be oversized. Good luck! Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! Just so we are all on the same page.... The DC-8-63 kit features JT3D engines. A DC-8-61 ALSO features JT3D engines. What you are discussing refers to either a long duct pod (-62, -63) or a short duct pod (-50 or -61 series), but they are ALL JT3D engines. And, yes, it is a REAL shame that Minicraft did not follow through with their promised -61 kit. I know several people (I was not one of them) who sold off their Revell DC-8-61 kits and then had nothing to replace them with. Personally, I'm not crazy about expensive aftermarket short duct JT3D engines, but that's just me. Incide

Greetings! My favorite was not listed, so I went widget. The "Golden Crown" would get my vote, as used on both props and the Convair 880 when delivered. Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! The Revell 747-8F is now available here in the USA. Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! They are available now. My LHS got them in on Wednesday or Thursday. Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! When contemplating a comparison of the Fairchild (ex Chase) C-123 to a C-130, try to remember that the C-130 is NOT a glider design that someone decided to put engines on........... Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! Thanks for posting a GREAT article! I had never seen a writeup on it like this before. Andre Priester, who is mentioned in the article, was a Dutch engineer who was snatched away from Albert Plesman at KLM by Juan Trippe of Pan American (CNAC was a PAA subsidiary) and was responsible for developing the spec requirements and negotiating contracts for all of the airplanes bought by PAA as well as the requirements for all flight crew. Without Priester, Trippe would not have been so successful in his pioneering efforts. Priester retired in the 1950's. Bixby was also a PAA man who was

Greetings! Actually, it was the other way around. It was a DC-3 with a shotup/damaged outer wing which then had a DC-2 outer wing fitted so that it could be flown out. See the Douglas Ingells book for reference to it. Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! Well, yes, you're right.... I was referring to mass produced plastic kits. Oh, and BTW, my comments about the three Dominicana aircraft were referring to the original ones operated in the 1970's/80's. Later on they bought more of them used and then went under not long after. Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! Dominicana had (IIRC) two short 727's and one -200, so check the registration numbers for whatever you want to build. Personally, I have never liked the Minicraft 727-200 at all and would go with the Airfix kit, but that's just me. The Minicraft outer wing looks like a club instead of a knife edge, and that completely destroys the look for me. If you want to do a short one, either the Airfix or the Revell are the only games in town and both can be built into a nice looking model with a little work. Regards, Jeff Jarvis

Greetings! You could be right, but I don't think that's it. The props on an Li-2 are not shaped like these are. These are shaped like the props on a C-47 with R-1830-92 engines. The Li-2 had both three and four bladed props on it, none of which had paddle blades like these kit props. Besides, most of the Li-2's I've seen had Soviet copies of American engines which turned the American way. I think Roden just got it bonehead wrong. Regards, Jeff Jarvis PS:Google Lisunov Li-2 and look at the images..........