Airbus A 319 SN Brussels airlines 1:144 Revell with Decals from Nazca
The Airline:
SN Brussels airlines emerged in February 2002 from the bankrupt Belgium state airline, Sabena. Since then the airline flies to various European cities from it’s base at Brussels airport. The airline flies to 14 destinations in Africa as well as two destinations in Arabia. In addition an agreement with American Airlines offers 34 destinations in North America. In Germany SN Brussels airlines flies to Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich. (Source: after www.Wikipedia.de) A 319s with SN are powered by CFM 56 engines and are fitted out in a 132 seat configuration. There are three A319s in the SN fleet.
Building the model:
As a basis for the project, I used the Revell A319 kit No. 4215 with decals for British Airways and Germanwings. As for the build, there is actually nothing outstanding to remark upon, which is a positive aspect. The accuracy of the model is good, the fuselage required only a bit of puttying and sanding. I always build a model until the only parts left to fit are the undercarriage, tailplane and engines. With the engines, I used a 0.5mm drill, to drill out each engine tailcone (exhaust duct) and sanded down the nacelle strakes so they were thinner.
Painting:
It is my opinion (as someone who has changed from AFV modelling) that airliner modelling is still the most difficult, in particular aircraft which are multicoloured. But there is always the topic, which colour is the correct and furthermore in order to get the right colour you often have to mix them. But Uwe Damaschek (Berlin Uwe) gave me a very good tip. If you have an original picture, you can use a computer programme(Corel Draw for example) which allows you to see the composition of each colour. It really helps when mixing a colour. In this case the light blue (lavender) colour that is on the belly and the engines, was formed from mixing light-grey, a little blue and a tiny bit of red. A lesson which I learnt from this project, is that you should mix enough of a colour in order to keep enough for later if you need touch up mistakes. Mixing a colour again later is very difficult. For the darker blue on the tail I used Revell paint No. 52. For the fans and hot section of the engines I used Model Master’s metallic colour. The SN machines have white wings and horizontal tail planes which is different to A319s with other airlines. This is something else that SN inherited from Sabena times. After painting I sealed everything with a coat of ‘Klear’ (Future) floor polish.
The Decals:
Applying decals always gives me the most fun, it’s when the aircraft starts to take on it’s own individual final appearance. To make a SN Brussels machine I used a decal sheet from Nazca Decals. This is printed on a continuous carrier film and therefore you have to closely cut out each individual decal. The print quality is very good, particularly with the ‘S’ on the tail, the dark blue colour underneath does not bleed through the decal. But it is the excellent Revell sheet that bring the model to life. My model had open windows so I used decals for the silver frames, the cockpit framework, the doors and also the numerous stencils. For applying the decals I used Mr. Hobby setting and softener liquid. I found that the decals were good to work with. After a few hours the decalling was complete, and I again covered everything with a new layer of ‘Klear’. Now I could start on the weathering. I used a little black and brown oil colour mixed with lighter fuel. I let this very thin mixture run into the panel lines and wiped the mixture with a Q-tip towards the trailing edges, which created streaks which are visible on the original aircraft. However you must be careful not to make the streaks too dark.
Conclusion:
I very much enjoyed building the A319 and it is good to add one of these to the collection. However I can not imagine having more than 10 of the A320 family in my collection, despite the many fantastic schemes around.
I’d like to thank Andy White for his help with the translation.
