I'm sure that I saw advertisements in Airfix Magazine for their new 1/144 Sky King Trident in the early 1960s. I don't recall getting one then because I wasn't very interest in airliners. However, the kit has been released and re-released on more than one occasion and I suppose that, what with the reissue of their ancient 727 kit, yet another re-release of their Trident must be just around the corner.
To my eye the Trident is a much more attractive airliner than the 727 but, as was usual at the time, the strange machinations surrounding specifications for British airliners meant that it was not one of the world's great airliners. This means that it didn't fly with many airlines and so there is not the vast number of decal options available as there is for the 727.
Here's a Trident 1c, the basic Airfix kit without modification. Had I thought about it, there are some simple changes that could have been made, offsetting the nose wheel could have been one of them. The decals are aftermarket and the paint comes from the Xtracolor range which were available at the time.
Next is a Trident 2E with some lovely aftermarket decals which were not easy to find at the time. But I've always found it fascinating the Mao's China bought airliners from the West when it usually got its aeroplanes from Russia. Perhaps this tells us something about the Chinese opinion on Russian aeroplanes at the time. The only significant change is extensions added to the wing tips, which the decal sheet gave information about.
Finally is the Trident 3 in the later BEA scheme. This is the F-Rsin resin kit which turned out rather nicely and a bit more accurate that the Airfix kit. I see that F-Rsin are now offering an injection moulded version of the Trident 3 but I don't need to concern myself about it since I've made this one. If I was making this set of Tridents again I might think about using the F-Rsin Plastic kit as a basis rather than the ancient Airfix kit.