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Dragon 1/144 B747-400 Wunala Dreaming


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Thanks for all the comments.

Wunala Dreaming is almost done, just need to finish the landing gear.

As for the kit itself, I can make the following comments and observations.

The fit of the parts is very good overall (except the clear panels, which I will talk about separately), only a little filling is needed. The plastic is very nice to work with and the finished model feels very solid. The clear panels need quite a bit of work to blend in with the solid sections but only requires basic (repeated) filling and sanding. There are no panel lines on the fuselage but even if there were, they would be lost during all the sanding. The one-piece engine pylons, intake rings and cowlings mean very little work and no seams to eliminate.

As mentioned before, much of the kit is a scaled-up Hasegawa 1/200 747-400, and several of the errors have been carried over, including the APU hump on the rear fuselage, incorrectly shaped wing gear doors etc... But the good points of the Hasegawa kit are also there, including overall shape and look of the 747. I am no expert on the details of a 747 but I have spotted a few errors when compared to the Revell kit:

The engine fans are completely wrong! Only half the number of blades and wrongly shaped spinners. A set of GE engine fans from the Revell kit will solve the problem and these fit very nicely into the Dragon engines with a bit of thinning. The flap tracks are too big and maybe too long. Also the top of the flap tracks are part of the top half of each wing and needs some filling and sanding to eliminate the gap when the wing halves are glued. The panel lines on the bottom half of the wings are wrong (or at least very different to the Revell kit), the wing gear bays appear too large and the doors are the wrong shape (just like the Hasegawa). The nose gear door and the way it attaches is scaled up from Dragon's 1/400 die-cast models. The doors are too "tall" and I had to cut 2.5mm off to make them look correct.

Compared to the Revell kit? Well, there are no issues in the Dragon kit with the wing angle or the nose shape, which I believe are the worst problems in the Revell. Yes, there is a lot of work to do on the clear panels in the Dragon kit but I'd rather do sanding and filling rather than trying to alter the wing angle... I started a Revell 747-400 a few years ago but never got round to finishing it so can't really comment on the details. This Dragon kit is in fact my first completed 747 in 1/144, since I have always stuck to 1/200 for 747s.

The Dragon kit also offers lots of opportunites to "super detail" it, with a full interior available, or perhaps an airport diorama with open doors and using the cargo/baggage containers provided.

For an "out of the box" build, as I have done here, I found it enjoyable and the completed model will certainly take center stage in my display cabinet. And I already plan to build another one, in Cathay Pacific Asia's World City colours (another Brasil decal!!), and using the Rolls Royce engines from the Revell BA kit.

It is an expensive kit but I can say go ahead and try one, put a bright livery on it and even with an "out of the box" build you will have a very nice 1/144 747 in your collection!

Now to the decals... as expected, the Brasil Decals gave me lots of problems but I have used many of their "bad" sheets before and managed to get reasonable results. For this one, I cut the decals into smaller sections, by cutting of the tails/legs of the kangaroos and the stripes/dots from the circles etc... and then re-building the graphics piece by poece. I tried the usual setting solutions with no effect at all, but Johnsons Klear appear to do the job. The clear edges and sections of the decals must also be trimmed away completely to prevent silvering. After dipping in water, I removed the decal and dipped the back of it in Klear which also helped. Some cuts must be made to help the decal settle around the curves. Some touch-up paint was mixed to fill in any gaps. The graphics were not accurate and I had to adapt them to match the real thing as closely as possible, again touch-ups were done in many places. I applied quite a few heavy coats of Klear to seal the decals and then polished the fuselage with Tamiya compound to reduce the thickness of the decals.

Will post some photos of my completed Wunala Dreaming as soon as I can.

Dennis (in HKG)

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  • 1 month later...

Very nice model Dennis! The paint and decals came out beautifully!

Saw the real one at Johannesburg Intl. a few years ago!

Cheers

That would have been a sight! I've seen it coming in to land at Tullamarine in Melbourne a couple of times. Sadly, its sister ship Nalanji Dreaming now sits forlornly, stripped of all but the base blue, at Avalon Airport just outside Melbourne:

http://flymefriendly.com/gallery/v/various/2009-12-31-YMAV/100_3549.JPG.html

Kev

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Its a sad site... :(

Do you know where 'Wunala Dreaming' is?

Unfortunately I don't, but I believe it's still in active service. I'm under the impression that Nalanji Dreaming no longer has an airworthiness certificate.

Kev

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  • 2 weeks later...

Unfortunately I don't, but I believe it's still in active service. I'm under the impression that Nalanji Dreaming no longer has an airworthiness certificate.

Kev

Amazing looking model Dennis,

and Kev, unfortunately even though VH-OEJ(Wunala Dreaming) is still in service, she has been repainted into the regular QANTAS livery.

Aaron

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