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1/125 Heller Airbus A380


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Hi all

dose anyone know of any write ups or reviews on the Heller 1/125 A380 kit,also are there any in box pic's of the sprues,as im thinking of getting this kit.

Cheers Clive. :crying2: :P :P

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I think someone posted here in the past a few shots of the kit-- it is much like the 72nd scale concorde in the respect that the fuse is a few diffrent parts, and they share the same stand...

the only other thing that really stuck out in my mind is that the doors could be in the open or closed position..

now if someone has a link to the thread or has more information, i too would be interested, because of the same reason you are, Clive.

Sorry i couldnt be more of a help

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Cheers Chris and Phil

for the info,as for that link i have already been through that one and its pretty dead when it comes to the picture side of things.I think that for something that is quite large on the scale front it has not much in the way of reviews,i found one french link with very poor pic's of the kit but not being able to understand french it was a hopeless task.Im hoping to get one this week so when i do i will post pictures and give a review on how this thing looks.

Cheers Clive.

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Hi Clive,

You really need to get one of those ! All in all, I think it is a lovely kit :rofl: , being generally well designed. Don't be frightened by the multi-part fuselage, it builds up well. I think it is an IMMENSE improvement compared to what you got in the 1/72 Concorde box :thumbsup: .

I got a Airbus corporate livery release first, was so pleased with it that I ordered another 2 Lufthansa releases and a 2nd Airbus corporate livery release. I now have 4 patiently waiting :pray: !

A 5th may be on its way... man, that's Heller stuff I LOVE !!!

Best regards, Stéphane

PS : in case you didn't know, yes, I do love emoticons lol !

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Cheers Stephane

Im hopeing to get one some time this week if i can find one in the local model shops closest to me,if not then im going to order one from Hannants.The big ol lump is supposed to be due for another visit to LHR in May but it has not been confirmed as of yet.

Cheers Clive.

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I have one and I must say that it looks really nice. It is definitely more detailed than Revell's offering.

It is evident that the kit was released after the actual plane had flown and there are quite a few things present on it which are missing from Revell's model (mostly minor stuff, however).

I am really worried about fit between parts of the fuslage. Even the first two parts (the one with cockpit windows) don't align perfectly when dry fitted. There is a gap running down the nose. Although it's nothing you can't fix.

If you take a look at this site, there are some pictures of the sprues and you can also see the gap in one of the images of dry fitted parts.

http://www.ipmsdeutschland.de/FirstLook/He...irbus_A380.html

Also, in my case, the frame of the cockpit windows was broken. The frame is made of really thin stripes of styrene and it may break easily. Not a big deal though, I think, as you have to modify the shape of the frame anyway. It is closer to the actual plane than Revell but still not 100%.

And you have the huge sink marks under the wings to fill in. Do all releases have them or only the initial ones? I've seen the sink marks on all the pistures I could find...

All in all, if you search well, you can find a couple of photos of Heller's completed A380s and they look stunning.

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Hi Majekm

thanks for the tips,im expecting mine to arrive tomorrow,fingers crossed that is.Im looking foward to building it,although i have found no pictures on the net of any of the model Heller A380's complete,still i will be able to have a go myself soon.

Cheers Clive.

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I have a few photos of build up A380s from Heller. I also seem to have problems inserting images into my posts. If you let me know what I might be doing wrong, I will post the pictures.

I tried to include one photo as an attachment.

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I have a few photos of build up A380s from Heller. I also seem to have problems inserting images into my posts. If you let me know what I might be doing wrong, I will post the pictures.

I tried to include one photo as an attachment.

Majemk,

You need to host the images on another site (like Photobucket) and link to them in your post. You can't upload pictures directly to ARC anymore.

:doh:

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Hi all

well here we go,this is an impressive kit,but be aware it is full of nasty goings on.I start by opening the box to find a very neatly packed model,then i move in for the kill and examin it closer,well this is what i found.First pack out and opened was the wings and tail plane sprue,this was pretty badly made for a kit of £27.99,the wings were bent and twisted and had sink marks in both sides of the flaps section.i also found that the overall fit of the wings to be poor aswell,they did not seem to line up properly with each other,so all the pegs on the male side of the wing were sanded so as i could then tape and clamp the wings togather.Second item out was the fuselage,why oh why did they make the thing like the real thing,they should of just stuck to making two halves of the fuselage and be like any other model airliner,the problem with making it like the plans tell you to is nothing fits properly,this was tried by dry fitting the fuselage sections togather.So i decided to make the fuselage sections into two halves and then left to dry over night.The next thing was to fit the two halves togather,well this was not quite as bad as making it like the plans say but it still left discrepances in that the two halves did not make for a perfect fit.I had to build the nose section seperately as this was bent and broken,when i came to fit the cockpit glass it did not go at all,so this called for a new glass cockpit to be fitted.When this was complete i then began to fit the nose to the rest of the fuselage,and you've guessed it,it did not fit properly,so i now have applied some filler to the front section and more to the rest of the model.By now i was starting to loose faith in this kit,but then i started to have a go at fitting the doors well apart from the oversized detail on the doors themselves,they were not a bad fit,but this was after you got the right door in the right place on the right side.Yep another big flaw the plans themselves,they tell you the kit part numbers but they are all for the wrong side of the fuselage so do be aware of this as it seems to crop up quite a few times whilst making this kit via the plans.While i was waiting for things to dry i started to search the net for some referance pic's,when i found some of the one the model represents then i looked more closely at the details on the real thing via the photos.The APU inlet at the rear of the model looks a bit plain so i cut the model APU inlet out and scratch built a new one now it looks more like an APU inlet.Well im still sanding this kit as we speak so i will let you ponder over the pic's.

CRW_1705.jpg

CRW_1706.jpg

CRW_1710.jpg

Wings were cut from the sprues in this pic as they were so badly warped.

CRW_1711.jpg

CRW_1712.jpg

CRW_1709.jpg

CRW_1713.jpg

CRW_1714.jpg

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Great. I didn't expect you would start so soon.

Keep it going - there are not enough airliners' build reviews on the Internet. And finally there are some opinions on building Heller's A380 in English.

I really enjoyed your pictures. I'm sure you'll build it up into something impressive.

Especially, considering the scale...

I have questions about cockpit glass - How did you make the new windows? And why didn't the original part fit into the openings? Is there no way of making it fit?

Thanks,

Michal

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Hi Michal

The cockpit glass dose not line up with the spar sections that are moulded in the nose section,so if you want to fit the cockpit glass that comes with the kit then you will have to cut the cockpit spars from the main nose section then insert the glass and make good with either putty or plastic card strips.I went for a new cockpit as i have some clear plastic in my stash,this was the easiest way for me,but it now has dust on the inside of the cockpit glass which is from all the sanding,this is not 100% sealed tight so the dust dose get in.Its a right pain but you can also paint the cockpit glass grey and then use Johnsons Kleer or gloss varnish after,as you can not see any cockpit detail from either my cockpit glass and definately not the kit cockpit.Hope this helps and i will have another update soon.

Cheers Clive.

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Thank you, Clive.

I thought there might be a problem with the cockpit windows.

Please, keep on updating this thread. I am really looking forward to your build.

Make it detailed, both the plane and the progress description B) . I'm sure I'm not the only one who's going to enjoy it.

Cheers,

Michal

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Hi all

this thing is a pain in the butt,anything and everything is wrong to a degree.I start with the fuselage,i think im somewhere near finishing the sanding of filler"might have spoken to soon here" yes this is one greedy model when it comes to filler.The two halves are not exactly,well good fitting.The two halves where joined and then the first of many coats of filler was applied,the fuselage seems to be of different widths even with the inner supports placed in there correct positions.Its a bit of a bumpy ride when you run your hand over the fuselage its more like the surface of a frozen pond"smooth with a few small ripples" if you get my drift.Anyway more filling and sanding has gone on,now i have decided to fill the doors as there is plenty of detail in the decals.At this point im just going to say this WINGS!!!!! well the fit is awful,not only are they bad fitting but the upper surface to the wing is a tad to short so you get this gap between the top part of the wing and the fuselage,they give you an insert so as when you join the two fuselage halves togather the wings just slot on,but this i did not add as when dry fitting the wings where even worse as in they never even met with the fuselage.Im just wondering who made the moulds for this thing im finding flaws all over the place and thats not just with the kit,the plans are also back to front and inside out.

This is a look at her before the doors were filled.

CRW_1807.jpg

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CRW_1809.jpg

CRW_1810.jpg

This is the underside where the main landing gears are going to be,this looked like the dip between two hills,nice if your thinking of adding grass and a few trees posible stream at the bottom,sorry getting a bit carried away there.No seriously it was not that deep but the thing had some dip in it.

CRW_1814.jpg

This is the front end and the new windshield.Im still thinking of filling the whole thing and adding a decaled cockpit.

CRW_1817.jpg

And this is the newly scratch built APU,the kit version was terrible.

CRW_1822.jpg

Anyway thats it for now more of the sausage plane to come soon.

Cheers Clive.

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Actually, it's sort of a good thing that there are still hard kits out there. Getting this to a high standard deserves a lot more respect than doing yet annother Tamigwa jet, which fits to microscopic tolerances.

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Actually, it's sort of a good thing that there are still hard kits out there. Getting this to a high standard deserves a lot more respect than doing yet annother Tamigwa jet, which fits to microscopic tolerances.

I can fully agree on that. The Streem Su-24 kit I'm doing at the moment is one of those harder kits... Yet very satisfying project.

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