Wings900 - Herpa Air-Berlin Airbus Industrie A320-214 1:400

Wings900 Model Review Reviewer: Michael Warfel Model Photographs � Todd McCartney Real Aircraft Photo Courtesy of JetPhotos.net
*Airline*	*Make/Model*	*Manufacturer*	*Scale*
	Airbus Industrie A320-214		1:400

*Introduction*
	Air Berlin, meanwhile the second largest German airline, is gradually replacing its Boeing 737-800s with Airbus A320-200s. Not less than 62 airplanes are on order until 2011. The airplane with the registration D-ABDA has been airborne since October of last year.

The Model

Herpa has done a superb job on its 1:400 A320 mould and we'll start with the rear of the model. This model is fully made of metal so as you can see the vertical stabalizer is fully made of metal. The stripe lines up with the fuselage between the tail however the Air Berlin titles seem to have not had the printing press fully on this mdoel as they are clearly lighter then the fuselage color which is not correct. The horizonstal stabalizers are well moulded and are true to the actual aircraft in terms of color.

As you can see here this showed you the full profile of the A320 mould and as you can see it is very well done. However there are some issues. The wing body fairing is completed painted in a red color which first of all does not match the fuselage color red similar to how the titles are too light against teh white background. The second issue is the red cheatline should go down the length of the fuselage which means that it is not correctly painted, which is not only very odd but a dissapointment.

The wings thesmelves are well moulded however like the 1:500 model have the wing body fairing directly moulded with the wings which creates the color issue as noted above. The winglets have Air Berlin printedo n them which is quite impressive considering how small this model is. The engine pylons are moulded as a seperate piece and have the details printed directly on the pylons. The engines are well moulded with lots of detail which include the two tone engine exhaust.

There seemed to be a couple gear issues with this batch of Herpa models and this one has a cockeyed nose gear which seems to be quite odd, and should be able to be fixed by some careful bending back into place. The tail number is clearly printed on the nose gear door while the main gears are well done and correctly placed. The cockpit windows are well done and have minimal squinting with the center window panes and there is no overlap with the stripe on the nose of this model.

The window line is printed at the correct height and lines up nicely along the lines of the fuselage. The over wing exit doors correctly line up with the markings on the wing. The doors are nicely aligned and have the addtitional door handle details. The titles on the fuselage correctly line up with the window line however as with the tail seem to be too light against the white background which makes them appear in a faded color. The registartion and flag are clearly printed towards the rear of the fsuealge.

Final Thoughts

The mould of this model is good hwoever there was some serious paint issues with the wing body fairing being a different color and not matching the actual aircraft livery and the titles being much too light. This model does not meet the normal expectations I expect from a Herpa 1:400 model.

Rating

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