Wings900 - Herpa Hawaiian Airlines Douglas DC-10-10 1:600

Wings900 Model Review Reviewer: Jim Klug Model Photographs � Jim Klug Real Aircraft Photo Courtesy of JetPhotos.net
*Airline*	*Make/Model*	*Manufacturer*	*Scale*
	Douglas DC-10-10		1:600

Introduction

In late 1993, Hawaiian Airlines entered into a series of marketing and services agreements with American Airlines' parent AMR Corporation. Consequently, Hawaiian replaced its entire widebody fleet of Lockheed L-1011 aircraft with DC-10 aircraft provided and maintained by American. They were used for flights between Hawaii and the mainland U.S. and South Pacific destinations before being replaced by 767-300ER in 2003. This model is part of Herpa's MAGIC line. The models are entirely made of metal, and carry the colors of various popular airlines. The new range of models started off with ten models and now included airports and accessories. Product ID: 470032

The Model

Hmmm, when I see 1:600 and I immediately think of my Schabak models. Like a lot of collectors out there, I have had one or three 1:600 models in my collection before. Considering everything that was wrong with Schabak, I really was surprised to see the MAGIC line come out in 1:600. I was very leary of these models to begin with. As I have either given away my other 1:600 models or keep them as toys, I was wondering what Herpa could do to.... So let's take a look.

After being brought up on Herpa OG wheels and spoiled by the fantastic NG gears, it is kind of hard to open a new model to find gears like this. Be that as it may, I will not go on and on and on about how the gears need work or should be improved. Afterall we are talking about 1:600 scale models here. The nose and cockpit section is really nice here. It has the creast for the middle cockpit windows. The side windows aer a bit big in my opinion. The anti-glare shield is nice and correctly positioned. The cheat lines line up correctly with the door and cockpit windowe. But I get the impression that the red cheat line is a little bit too low as it shouldn't extend lower than the top half of the radome. The door detail (window) is nice for this scale and the Hawaiian looks fantaastic.

The wing root is also very nice for this scale. The wings have sharp details and look good too. A little thick for the scale, but they have to be. The back part of the plane also looks nice. I love the tapered fuselage and the horizontal stabilizers. The only thing that is missing is the stabilizer fuselage plate (it was quite big on Hawaiian DC-10s). The engine here looks nice with a great effort reproducing the engine inlet and tail cone (the white is a great added touch) and the logo looks good. The only thing negative here is the swoosh of the cheatlines should end up in the middle of the 4 lines coming down from the flower - he we see it is just a bit too short.

Now here comes the Achilles heel of the 1:600 scale series planes. The engine pylons are - in a nutshell - terrible. It is not as bad as it seems though. First of all, at this scale, they need to be reenforced abd built to last. If they made true to scale pylons, they would be snapping off cach time you picked the model up - not to mention the losses when trying to manufacture the planes. So it is a trade-off, ugly pylons and a 1:600 scale model. As long as we want metal wings, we will have to live with reenforced pylons.

Did you ntice that this model is polished metal? Just simply fantastic. I hope that Herpa can also extend the use of this manufacturing technique to other models/scales as well.

Final Thoughts

A new 1:600 scale line of products? Well, all I can say is congratulations Herpa - this is a fantastic job of meeting collectors needs with a model airplance that has the quality to become a collectable but also has the price and features (gear and pylon) to make it as a toy as well.

Rating

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