Wings900 - Herpa Lufthansa Airbus Industrie A330-343X 1:500

Wings900 Model Review Reviewer: Michael Warfel Model Photographs � Todd McCartney Real Aircraft Photo Courtesy of JetPhotos.net
*Airline*	*Make/Model*	*Manufacturer*	*Scale*
	Airbus Industrie A330-343X		1:500

Introduction

Lufthansa�s goal-getter: in Germany everything centers around soccer these days. So it does also at Lufthansa, the biggest German airline. On the occasion of the Soccer-World Championship some of its air aircrafts have been equipped with a football on the nose. Lufthansa already exclusively sells some of those Herpa models. The Airbus A 330-300 D-AIKI model is limited to 1500 issues and the copyright lies now with Herpa. The model will also be offered in a small edition as a Herpa fair model at this year�s International Air- and Space-Travel Exhibition (ILA Berlin, 19.-21. May 2006). You are able to place an order in advance at your eXtra-partner. Attention: you can only buy this model during the eXtra-weekend at your local eXtra-partner. You will be able to place an online order for a possible residual amount of the limited edition after the eXtra-weekend.

The Model

In celebration for this year's World Cup Herpa painted a handful of aircraft with soccer balls on the radome of the aircraft and this model comes as an exclusive for the ILA 2006. Now thanks to Herpa we have most of the Herpa fleet so its not unusual to see another Lufthansa model from the Herpa line up. We've discussed this mould numerous times and the overall shape of the A330 mould is very well done. The fuselage dimensions are true to the actual aircraft and represents the actual aircraft very well.

The window line is printed at the correct height on this model. The one error on the window line comes towards the rear of the model where the window line should upslope in which this model has a straight window line. The doors now carry the additional door details which is a nice added feature along with some additional details that we will discuss later. The Lufthansa titles properly line up with the window line and are of the correct font and position.

The nose gear doors are correctly placed and as you cna see Herpa has included the tail number on the nose gear doors which is an item that I've been requesting as an additional detail. However ou see that this model is missing one of the nose gear tires which the photographer managed to loose. The gears have no residue but this one seems to have slipped away somewhere. Thanks to Herpa's excellent customer service this will be an easy item to request and have fixed.

The wings are well moulded and are of the correct white on the top grey on the bottom color scheme. The pylons are moulded into the wing directly however the trent engines need to be remoulded into a larger size to make it more accurate to the actual aircraft. The wingles are nicely moulded on the tips of the wings and once again represnt the actual aircraft. The cargo doors are printed in the correct position and are nicely contrasted in two different colors of grey against the white and darker grey background.

The rear of the fuselage upslopes correctly and is well done. Herpa has now included the additional detailing along the horizontal stabalizers that I've requested and it is a much welcomed detailed on what would otherwise be a bland model. The APU exaust is printed clearly on the rear of the model. As you can see the tail is still moulded out of plastic and you can see the light going through the tail even in this shot. The crane logo is printed in the correct position and the tail number is printed at the top of the fuselage.

Final Thoughts

This model has some new details that are much welcomed feature to it's 1:500 models. The mould is well done and the livery is well replicated.

Rating

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