EXTRAORDINARY LABOUR OF LOVE: PAPER MODEL BOEING 777 EVEN INCLUDES WORKING THRUST REVERSERS

In 83 days or so, Boeing can go from assembling a 777’s first components, to flight testing the assembled bird, to delivering it to an airline. A typical model kit might take anywhere from a day to a week. But Luca Iaconi-Stewart’s amazing hand-crafted paper liner has been a five-year production.

BUILDING A 1:1 SCALE BOEING 777 FOR BRITISH AIRWAYS

David Jefferis reports
There’s nothing like a speeded-up movie for revealing the secrets of how things work, and this three-minute movie is an excellent example. Of course, what you don't see is the immense amount of hard work that went into the making of it - but no matter, the result is well worthwhile.

Triple Seven
The subject of the movie is Boeing’s big-twin, the 777 ‘Triple-Seven’, described as his ‘favourite seat’, by an ex-BA friend of mine. The real thing has seats for more than 300 passengers, and one version - the 777 200LR - has flown more than halfway round the world non-stop. More than 860 Boeing 777s are in airline service, with the order book tally so far at 1148 aircraft.

Boeing 777 models
The 777 is more widely represented in the ready-built market than in construction kits, and there’s a range of them in various scales available here.

A call for interesting airliner kits
Having said that, for 1:144 scale enthusiasts, the Hasegawa 777 in Thai markings assembles into a fairly decent model. However, here’s a call to manufacturers to put some imagination into the subject, to offer something more interesting to the airline enthusiast.

For example, how about more cutaway models, with seats and freight decks on display? And while we’re at it, how about some crew and passenger figures to sit in those seats, and cargo pallets to fill the hold?

How about a section of tarmac for a mini-diorama setting? And some vehicles to populate that tarmac, such as refuelling tankers and baggage handling trucks, complete with personnel?

And in these days of cheap electronics, surely it would be easy enough to provide a lighting set and sound effects...

USEFUL SIZE-O-METER FROM THE NETHERLANDS

Dutch Telesale is an online supplier that has a surprisingly useful set of pages (top picture) on its site. These chart the length and wingspan of a range of aircraft, at various scales, in both Imperial and Metric measurements.

For example, a 1:24 Boeing 777-300 would be a whopping 121 inches (3073 mm) long, but at 1:500 it’s just a palm-of-the-hand 5 inches (148 mm).

There are some nice things for sale on DT’s site too, including a Herpa Wings 1:400 Airbus and DC-3 pair (middle picture), commemorating old and new airliners in Cathay Pacific's fleet. From Spark there is a tiny, yet beautifully detailed PininFarina Modulo concept car to 1:87 scale.

The Modulo dates back to 1970, yet still looks utterly futuristic, like a rocketship on wheels. It’s one of my all-time fave designs, not least for the slide-forward cockpit canopy (bottom picture). Wow - imagine something like this as a 21st century hydrogen-electric ecomobile, on sale in your downtown auto showroom. Gimme! Now!

You can visit Dutch Telesales here.