"Airport 77": the Star in 1:100th

[tor lives]

G'day guys,
Well....to go along with my "Airport 79" 1:100th Entex Concorde, my other candidate for inclusion in our A/CAM display next year will be this very old, battered, and banged-up Nitto 1:100 747-100, (I am going to need to fall back on ALL I have learnt about old kit refurbishing if I am going to pull this one off ).
She is planned to be the Stevens Corporation Boeing 747-100 as featured in "Airport 77". In the movie, she is a highly-polished private jet, (which means lots of nice, shinny Alclad), that is hijacked and crashes in the Bermuda triangle.
The aircraft carries the basic American Airlines colour scheme of the time and this will be catered for by using the Draw Decal NASA 747 sheet, (which is also essentially the basic American Airlines colour scheme....lucky for me ). Damo is helping me out with custom "Stevens Corporation" fuselage titles and stylised "S" for the tail.
Here is where I am at to this point







As can be seen.....there is MUCH work to be done on this ol girl

Here is the subject 747 as she appeared in the movie









And here is the classic movie poster



So....hopefully come Expo next year I will have the two big 1:100 "Airport" movie series jets ready for our A/CAM display.
TOR

[hrtpaul]

Good luck my young Padawan

[Adam the Akrodude]

Good luck! You sure didn't skimp on the glue way back when - like your "engineering factor" with construction! Great topic.
Guessing Alclad polished aluminium for the finish?

[tor lives]

G'day Adam,
Yeah....Alclad polished Aluminmium, Chrome, burnished jet exhaust, you name it.
Fortunately.... what appears to be excessive glue down the seams in the photos is actually just white bog, so the task is not as daunting as it may appear, (and the glue damage is not as bad as it first appeared). That being said, there is still a LOT to do on this poor old thing, (not the least of which is trying to bring the four big ol JT9 engines back from the "dead'). I have another one of these old Nitto 747s in "storage" and if this refurb is a successful recovery, than I will attempt the other one.....this time in Columbia Airlines markings form "Airport 75", (get ready for the next custom decal request Damo ).
TOR
PS: looking at the photos of the jet on the sea bed above....it appears that I am actually making a model of a model. I wonder if they used the Nitto kit as well