Airbus assembly

Airbus factory

A plane that was made out of a couple of silly pieces was indeed pretty simple to assemble. The plastic felt a bit flimsy to me, though. The cockpit area was built out of a few little pieces and that got sealed into the hull. I then glued the passenger windows in with white glue as it has worked nicely for transparents. When the hull halves were cured I glued the wings in, and added the rudder in place as well.

Both of the engines were built out of four pieces: the disc with the turbine blades, its rear end, and the two halves of the casing. I didn't glue them in place yet, I'd do that when I had the landing gear firmly set.

Getting the landing gear was surprisingly bothersome and I blamed the plastic type for it. Somehow this material just didn't want to cooperate with my glue (mr Surfacer S), and that caused tooth grinding. When the landing gear was in and cured, I then glued the engines in place.

I did not have any weights to hide inside the nose (the instructions told to use ten grams, and I was absolutely unprepared for this sort of nonsense), even the old fishing-related lead balls I had had were gone for decades at this point. Perhaps I could hide a black-paited screw behind the pilot's and copilot's seats if nothing else came up.

 

Apart from the cockpit window the plane was practically built. You could tell from the photos that there were some gaps, and I had to do something about them.

Puttying

I squeezed Vallejo's liquid putty where I decieded it was needed, and then blended the stuff with a damp paintbrush. When the goo was dry, I sanded the excesses away.

Maybe that was it for me, and I could hand it over to be painted? I thought I could recommend the Project Assistant I to start with the cockpit so we could glue the final transparent piece in its place. Their inspiration was fleeting, so it was pretty likely that I wouldn't be sharing the progress on this project quite as reliably as I did with my own builds.