1/144 Revell  Airbus A380 Part 1 of 3 

by Pierre Greutert

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The A380 attracts a lot of attention in 2005, as she is poised for her maiden flight closes very soon. When I noticed the Revell release back in 2004, I could not resist the temptation of building the very first kit of this awesome aircraft. The overall size of the 1/144 scaled model is impressive, and it will not fit into a regular display case! “Never mind,” I thought then, “let’s build it first, and find a suitable hangar for her later.”

I divide the full article in 3 installments, so I can go into some details which I think make this build a little different from traditional “out-of-the-box” assemblies.

- Part 1: Scratch-built cockpit with illuminated instrument panel. Cabin, taxi, icon and NAV lights. Body assembly.

- Part 2: Engines with custom-made etched fan blades. Landing gear.

- Part 3: Paint job, final adjustments. Display base, with illuminated taxiway.

COCKPIT LIGHTS

Adding lights to a cockpit has been a dream since I finished my 1/32 F-4 Phantom model. So I decided to use the A380 as a test-bed for my first fibre-optics (FO) project. If it works in 1/144 scale, it should work in my next 1/32 scale project, shouldn’t it?

 

 

Here are the basic elements of the illuminated cockpit. A scratch-built platform, which I cast from the original kit item. I added the instrument panel, the throttle quadrant and drilled the holes into which the FO will plug. The idea was to have the FOs back-light the instruments on the panel, which I designed and printed on cardstock.

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I bent the FOs by heating them with a hair dryer. Look at how the FOs plug into the cockpit instrument panel from behind. On the second photo, the front face shows the FOs light. The source of light is a white LED, attached to one end of the FOs. The light is then carried by each FO to its other end.

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I glued the instrument panel (printed cardstock) over the FOs with Microscale Crystal Clear, and the result shows off quite pleasantly. The original concept was a “brilliant” idea

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CABIN LIGHTS

For the cabin lights, I used a fluorescent tube with a high-voltage converter. The final result shows the exact “Christmas Tree” effect I wanted to achieve.

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The kit comes with the traditional window cutouts, but no “glass” is provided. I had to fill the windows from the inside. Since I wanted to add cabin lights, I used clear 2-component epoxy. The first step was to tape the windows from the outside. Then I sprayed the entire inside of the hull with flat black acylics, to prevent future bleed-through of the light. The last step was to pour the epoxy, and to remove the tape after the epoxy had cured.

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Both pictures below show how I installed the fluorescent light and its converter. Between the tube and the windows is a translucent sheet of plastic, acting as a light diffuser. To the left of the high voltage converter, you can see the beacon electronic unit, which provides two tiny red LEDs with flashing light (one on the top, one on the bottom of the body). The left photo shows both fuselage halves before I mated them: the inside is packed with electronic stuff! No risk of excessive heat however: LEDs do not produce any, nor does the fluorescent tube. The converter does not produce a lot of heat either: I measured a peak of 23°C only inside the hull after 15 minutes.

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OTHER LIGHTS

I added two LEDs to the tail of the aircraft, peeking through the hull upwards towards the vertical stabilizer. They will illuminate the company logo. I framed the spot where the LEDs stick through the hull with aluminum, to prevent further light bleed-through at this place, where the plastic gets very thin.

As I became familiar with LEDs (and had many in stock), I decided to add landing lights to the wing leading edges. Note that all electrical connections will receive power through the strut of the wing landing gear (more on this in Part 2).

I ran also two FOs through the inside of the wing, to the wing-tip NAV lights.

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BODY ASSEMBLY

The main drawback of the kit is Revell’s traditionally deep recessed panel lines. I wanted my model to look like an airliner, not a die-cast Dinky Toy! So I spent a lot of time filling in ALL panel lines. I used an automotive putty, which was easy to apply and dried fast. The sanding required a lot of time too, not to mention the usual FILL-SAND-CHECK-FILL… cycle

To the left are the main parts of the kit, showing the sheer size of the model, hence the huge amount of time to fill all the panel lines…

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Picture 1 below: look at those trenches! They would be crevices in 1/1 scale   At a very early stage of the build I snapped together both hull halves, and the look reminded me of an over-inflated blimp!

Picture 2 below: putty was the obvious answer.

Picture 3 below: the result was a surface smooth as an egg shell, very soft to the hand. I just loved it

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Mating the body halves went without a glitch. I used liquid CA to join both parts. To prevent future cracking, I poured 2-component epoxy (Araldit) from the inside over the seam. When everything was OK, I checked again that the electrical stuff was working according to plans, pushed all the wires inside and closed the body with the bottom part. You can see how the LEDs connect to the FOs (blue-red shrink tube). The belly red flashing beacon is visible here too.

Do you note both aluminum tubes sticking out from the lower wing surface? These are the power connectors, in which the landing gear strut will plug (more on this topic in Part 2).

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The kit is about to become a nice looking A380 model, with a primed body and wings - a pure, new born white airliner.  I must confess that the beer is only one of many I needed to get to this stage

The next article will tell you the story about some nice additions I did to the engines, and how I solved the nightmare of the 22 wheeled landing gears!

Pierre

Photos and text © by Pierre Greutert