Retro Airliners & Liveries (1950s-2000) Group Build

That is an attractive livery for an airliner.

Finished painting the core colors of the fuselage. It’s super glossy so I’m super stoked about that.



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Man, that is a TINY plane but your natural metal finish came out"Silky Smooth"(You Don’t Mess With the Zohan)

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Thanks! I’m super proud of how it turned out! It took 3 tries of paint and sanding to achieve the shininess and smoothness I wanted.

WOW, that Hercules is so tiny! Are you one of those guys that have elaborate props to use in your model photographs, like the classic 4X size quarter or the 2X size human hand? :rofl:

Just kidding, it’s looking great!

I did a bit of work on the 747SP over the weekend.

The model is now properly ballasted to avoid tail-sitting. With some additional epoxy putty used to fully bury the bolt in the nose, the C.G. is even more forward than the balance test photo. I didn’t tack the engines on, as I think they won’t affect the overall balance. Famous last words, I know. I’d better perform one more balance test once the engines are built up.

Speaking of engines, those pylons were excessively over-engineered, with the outboard units comprising SIX parts each! The inboards were only four each. All pylons have joints running through some really delicate detail too. Cleanup and rescribing will not be fun. What the hail, Easter Express!

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Connie Update: I located my Dremel the other day and today I cut a slot in the bottom of the fuselage for a display stand. Now I can proceed with the NMF paint.

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A “Connie” just landed recently at the 2025 EAA!! My favorite of the prop airliners.

looking amazing @fotofrank! Can’t wait to see the livery on that one!

uhhhhh I may or may not have taken photos of models with both of your descriptors hahaha this is too funny!


Thanks for the encouraging words! I’m going to start decaling the bird this week!
I love your SP a lot! Gotta be one of my favorite variants because it looks like a guppy

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I find it funny that both @RealG and @fotofrank’s builds are the first two aircraft in this 2025 EAA arrivals video!

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I’ve been watching the live feed on the EAA website, so I saw the Connie arrive in real time. There are lots of great airplanes but the Constellation is just the top of the pyramid. The B-29 “Doc” is a very close second. The airshow is on right now.

Wow, what a neat coincidence! Thanks for posting that video, some pretty rare aircraft still flying around.

I finished my 1/200 L-100 conversion! Here she is! This was honestly one of my most favorite models I have ever built! I’m super glad with how it turned out. This was my 2nd airliner (that’s not really an airliner), and I just picked up an A320 that I hope to do in a theoretical Pan-Am livery for this GB too!

Let me know what you guys think!








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Very cool little dude! Never new they had any civilian roles.

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Very cool. I had no idea that airlines operated civilian Hercules aircraft.

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@keavdog & @fotofrank thanks so much! Delta used them in the 60s, Lynden uses them, Pan-Am ordered a few (never delivered), Alaska had one. There were other ones, but those were the ones I remember off the top of my head. Here’s a Wikipedia if you want to read more about them! click me!

Your Delta build prompted me to think “what-if.”

Another Connie update this morning:

This morning I sprayed the Connie with AK Polished Aluminum. Tomorrow it will get a good coat of Tamiya X-22 Gloss Clear, followed by Tamiya Gloss White. I don’t know how those two blemishes happened over the wing, but at least the area will be covered by the gloss white.

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It’s looking great! Hopefully the blemishes get covered by both paint and decals!

Hey guys, I hope everyone’s projects are proceeding smoothly!

The 747SP is proving a tricky beast to tame, as the fit is all DIY - it is on you to make it fit or not! I decided to test fit the engines to check alignment, and also to see if they negatively affected the C.G.

They LOOK okay, but I will probably make a jig to make sure the wing dihedral is equal, and the engines hang properly and point in generally the right direction.

The model feels very heavy now, but fortunately the C.G. is right between the main gear, so no problems there.

The landing gear are complex, multi-piece affairs. I was initially afraid that the rear mains had to be added before the wheel well went in, but with some thinning of the walls of the bay cut-outs, they can be slipped in afterwards. Whew! Alignment of the gear and the 18 wheels will be of the utmost importance. I have a thing against seeing crooked legs and wobbly looking wheels that don’t touch the ground.

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