Minicraft 1/144 Lufthansa B.737-300 'Futbol'

KIT #: 14619
PRICE: €
DECALS: One option
REVIEWER: Scott Van Aken
NOTES: 2008 boxing

HISTORY

Deutsche Lufthansa AG (FWB: LHA) (German pronunciation: [ˌdɔʏtʃə ˈlʊfthanzaː]), commonly known as Lufthansa(sometimes also as Lufthansa German Airlines), is the largest German airline and, when combined with its subsidiaries, also the largest airline in Europe both in terms of fleet size and passengers carried during 2017. The name of the company is derived from the German word, Luft 'air' and Hansa, the Hanseatic League. Lufthansa is one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, the world's largest airline alliance, formed in 1997.

Besides its own services, and owning subsidiary passenger airlines Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings including Germanwings (referred to in English by Lufthansa as its Passenger Airline Group), Deutsche Lufthansa AG owns several aviation-related companies, such as Lufthansa Technik, as part of the Lufthansa Group. In total, the group has over 600 aircraft, making it one of the largest airline fleets in the world.

Lufthansa was state owned until 1994. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of its fleet are Airbus aircaft with the 737-300 having been retired in 2016.

THE KIT

 There are probably better second generation 737s out there at this time, but this one is still quite nice and makes a nice model. It is typical of a Minicraft airliner, which means there isn't all that much to it in terms of parts. There is no cockpit so once it is painted black (assuming you want the cockpit windows clear) and put in a half ounce of weight, you can close the fuselage halves.

Wings are a separate upper and lower half on each side. There is no wheel well detail at all, but that isn't a big deal. What may be a big deal is that for the center portion of the main gear well, there is no backing so you are staring into the hollow fuselage. Each engine/pylon assembly is six pieced with the main nacelle split side to side. This will leave a nearly impossible to remove seam. Flap actuator fairings on the underside of the wing are separate items as well.

One will have to cut each of the small main gear doors into three even smaller pieces and then reassemble them for gear down.  A diagram shows how this should look when you are done. Nose gear doors are also a single piece. Could you build this gear up? Probably, but the instructions will not be helpful as they show nothing and you will need to build your own stand.

Instructions are adequate and they tell you to use Boeing grey for several areas of the airframe, but that color is pretty difficult if not impossible to find in the US thanks to heavy restrictions and so a high cost when it comes to shipping paint from Europe where this color is fairly available. The painting guide does show the polished metal leading edges, but not the corogard inner wing areas (they are shown on the box art). Markings are for a single aircraft that has a representation of a soccer ball on the nose for some particular occasion. Decals are nicely printed and should cause no issues upon installation. You are provided with several registration number options.

CONCLUSIONS

Minicraft kits are a known quantity and with a bit of effort in terms of painting, can be made into very nice models. There are resin replacement engines out there if you wish them. One of these days a manufacterer will figure a way to totally eliminate the intake seam on podded engines.

REFERENCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa

September 2018

Thanks to the IPMS Gateway raffle for this one

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact the editor or see other details in the Note to Contributors.

Back to the Main Page        Back to the Review Index Page       Back to the Previews Index Page