Tristar from the movies: 1/400 NG Air Atlantic L-1011 review

Most people probably have never seen this aircraft anywhere, but some may have watched the 'Passenger 57' movie from 1992, because that's where this aircraft was used. NG announced this model in July 2023 as a Buchannan release and in this review I will take a close look at how well they replicated it.

There are 6 parts that will be given between 1 and 10 points, 1 being the lowest and 10 being perfect. In the end the average of these scores will be the final score.

Accuracy of colors

Perry Hoppe GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons

The livery features a red color on top, bare metal belly, (very) dark blue cheatline and white in the middle. The tail is white with the same dark blue stripe going up. Please note that on the picture above there is a bare metal part around the cockpit, which was not present on the final livery.

The colors look very good. One minor issue is that the cockpitwindow edges are silver on the model, when they should be white.

Score: 10 / 10

Livery

On the model the top of the cockpit windows is pretty much aligned with the underside of the red color. On the real thing there is a noticable offset. It seems like NG tried to correct this by making the red color go down a little, but I think they had to lower the red color entirely instead.

The darkblue cheatline is placed correctly relative to the doors. The red color goes up underneath the tail engine, probably a QC issue as it isn't there on the box artwork, but it's very minor so it doesn't bother me. The darkblue line on the tail is positioned well, no issues here.

Score: 9,5 / 10

Logos, titles and stickers

The 'Atlantic' part is slightly too wide relative to the windows underneath. The 'Interational' part is also not 100% right, but again the difference is barely noticable. The 'AIA' letters on the tail are spot on. There were no other titles or flags added for the movie, making this section of the review shorter than usual.

Score: 9,5 / 10

Other details

The registrations are good, again not 100% perfect, but it's not enough to affect the score. The two (cargo) doors underneath are nicely done and so is this half circle thing on the left. NG puts loads of details on the Tristar's belly and it all seems to be fine, not going to mention them one by one.

There is not much going on around the engines, everything seems replicated nicely. The only issue I could find is that the antenna on top of the fuselage should be red, not white.

Score: 9,5 / 10

Paint and printing QC

Unfortunately my piece came with a paint chip above the horizontal stabilizer and there is some clear overprinting in the red area above. There is a lighter tint of red directly under the white tail.

The nosewheel isn't finished so well. On one side the tirehub looks fine, but on the other side there is too much paint, making it flat with the tire.

Score: 8 / 10

Mould QC

The wings, stabilizers, engines and gears are all assembled well. The tail engine is also finished very nice and round. On one of the main landing gears they forgot to remove some material, which makes me think of the old Tucano B747 gears.

Unfortunately the antennas have some issues. The plastic cradle that NG now uses for their Tristars don't have clearance for the antenna on the bottom rear, meaning there is constant pressure. Well, they made some space, but it's positioned completely wrong. The antenna is now flat and should be replaced entirely.

The antenna on top is also loose, but I should be able to glue it back in the correct position.

One final mention, which I think applies to all of NG's L-1011's, is that the geardoors are too wide. Not sure if this is QC or intentional, which is why I won't use it for the scoring, but it's definitely not right.

Score: 7 / 10

Conclusion

The overall model looks great and NG did a good job with the livery. The issues with the antennas are the reason why I don't mind if a model has them or not, because whenever I buy a new model that has antennas, they are quite often missing, broken or incorrectly placed. I will ask for a replacement and hope that one comes without issues. The total score is 53,5 / 6 = 8,9. Shoutout to scalemodelstore.com for their customer service, they will send me a new piece for free!