Wings900 - Herpa Bangkok Airways Airbus Industries A320-232 1:500

Wings900 Model Review Reviewer: Michael Hoeltmann Model Photographs � Todd McCartney Real Aircraft Photo Courtesy of JetPhotos.net
*Airline*	*Make/Model*	*Manufacturer*	*Scale*
	Airbus Industries A320-232		1:500

*Introduction*
	Bangkok Air is known for the exceptional liveries of its fleet. Every airplane has a different look, promoting a particular holiday region the airline flies to. The Airbus A320 with the registration HS-PGV depicts the province �Krabi�, a coastal region on the Thai mainland.

The Model

A little unusual, but we'll start with the tail section. The tail fin is well shaped and niely mounted to the fuselage, though the already known seam below the rudder is clearly visible. I leave it to everyone to judge himself, whether one likes it or not. The "Bangkok Airways" logo is well done and printed spot on as well as the tiny Thai flag. The registration is clearly printed as is the APU exaust on the rear of the model. The cargo doors as you can see are clearly printed however, the one part I don't like with the model is Herpa having the wing body fairing as part of the wings which creates the clearly visible seam on the model. I'll come back to this issue later.

This model comes on Herpa's New Generation II A320 mould which is very well done. The overall dimensions of the mould is correct and the shape of the model is correct. The window line is correctly placed on the fuselage and as you can see the doors have additional detailing on the lower side of the door which is a great to see these additional details in scale 1:500. Form this angle, you ca clearly see the wing body fairing being part of the wings and the resulting seam.

The shape of the nose is well done and has that true "Airbus" look to it. The cockpit windows itself are correctly designed, but are printed slightly too high. Further, the two center windows just slightly squint while all the panel windows should be the same vertical height from one another. I've seen this problem on some of Herpa's latest A320 releases in 1:500. The highly detailed nose gear is correctly placed. The same applies to the main gear.

The metal wings are well moulded on this model and have the correct dimensions. The winglets are well moulded in metal and are painted in grey, like the wings. The engine pylons are moulded directly into the wings and the V2500 series fit well overall on the pylons, though Herpa uses the same pylon for the CFM56 which means part of the V2500 goes into the engine pylon which it shouldn't but this is just a very minor problem. It's nice to see, that Herpa painted the intakes in dark grey instead of the common silver. In my opinion, this looks more real than the usual silver color.

The model shows a very compley livery, which Herpa replicated very well. I couldn't spot any mistake or misplacement. The colors matches the original ones very well. The name of the aircraft -"Krabi" - is correctly printed below the cockpit windows. The engines pylons could use a little more details.

Final Thoughts

Herpa did a great job on their New Generation II A320 mould, though there are some issues, especiall the wing body fairing. The livery of this A320 is a very colorful one and will be a nice addition to everyones fleet.

Rating

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