F-RSIN 1/144 ATR-72

The Avions de Transport Regionale family of twin-engined airliners was the result of successful collaboration between Aerospatiale and Alenia, both newcomers to the regional airline market. Despite this, then ATR 42 and 72 have been a tremendous success, noticing up healthy worldwide sales. The ATR 72 introduced a significant fuselage stretch to seat about 30 more passengers than the ATR 42. This in turn required uprated engines, a greater wingspan and strengthened undercarriage.

 The ATR 72 was announced in 1985 and the first of three development aircraft made its maiden flight on 27^th October 1988. The new type had a 14 ft and 9 inch fuselage stretch, increased span, mainly composit outer wing panels, and greater fuel capacity. The baseline ATR 72-200 was powered by PW124B engines.

 The ATR-72 only developments included ATR-72 ASW which combines the mission systems of the ATR 42MP with a rotary sonobuoy launcher, MAD, provision for torpedoes and other equipment to provide a multi-role capability against submarines, and surface vessels, as well as advanced patrol and search and rescue abilities.

 Besides the British Airways for which the kit is represented the ATR 72 also operates with Eurolot, Air France, Gill Airways, Titan Airways, KLM, Binter Canaries, Air Dolomiti among many others and the maritime version is serving with the Guardia di Finanza (Italian Coast Guard).See picture from the Malta International  Air Show near the bottom of the page. 

It is not my usual modelling acquaintance that usually opts for 1/72 popular scale and military subjects but a change once in a while does no harm. F-RSIN new release of the ATR-72 did not prove disappointing.

The 1/144 scale kit comes packaged in a sturdy box having a colourful side view of the ATR-72 on the box cover. Opening the box one will be surprised at how few the kit resin parts are. There is the decal sheet and one page of colour instructions. A small sealed bag contained two tiny nose wheels; another bag contained a solid resin fuselage, two wing pods, two tail plane parts, and eight wing fences. These are all cast in nicely finished cream coloured resin. The main wing part comes in a separate sealed bag and is wisely packed in such a way so that the correct dihedral of this important item is retained. One small bag contained the nose wheel metal leg, undercarriage doors, spinners and eight separately cast blades.

The solid resin fuselage has a smooth finish and accurate outline especially noticeable around the cockpit and tail unit area. There is a moulding seam around the lower fuselage that requires careful sanding having a slight overlap around the rear that may require some filler in order to preserve the correct shape. The rest of parts also have a smooth finish with very fine panel lines. The larger items are flush free. Undercarriage is issued so that the kit can be assembled with the gear down or in flight configuration.

Construction begins with assembly of the main planes and tail planes. The main planes easily slot in the upper mid fuselage recess and have to be correctly aligned and once cemented the small gap around the joint needs to be attended to using small amount of filler. The rear fuselage lacked the much-needed recess for the tail planes to fit into but there are tiny level engraved lines, which makes finding the correct placement an easy task. I found that the tail planes joining end required a small amount of adjustment by filing or gentle sanding in order to place them accurately to conform to the scrap plan view on the instructions. The main undercarriage has cast on metal legs and extra care is required when separating these integrated small castings from the resin runner in order to avoid unnecessary breakage, as these are very fragile. It is best to separate the excess resin using a fine saw and shape with a smooth flat file. The fuselage requires drilling locating holes once their position is carefully marked. The same applies to the nose wheel in order to locate the ‘T’ shaped metal oleo leg. I also drilled the exhaust outlet orifice deeper using a 3mm drill. A 1mm diameter hole was also drilled to each of the engine nacelle front so that the prop shaft aligns and fits.

One big advantage is that this kit needed no nose weight to balance. The two prop spinners had a small amount of flash that is removed before the blades are inserted in each of the four recesses.. One may be reminded that when fitting the blades a small amount of pitch is added to the fitting blades. The main planes wing tips required shaping to conform to scrap view of same item. There is also a small missing fairing to the wing tips that I added and was made from a tiny piece of scrap resin flush that was in the box. A small amount of filler was needed to the engine nacelles and tail plane roots

While the overall finish was of high quality there were small isolated areas that contained fine small air bubbles. These were mainly located at the undercarriage area as well as leading edge and undercarriage parts. I found best to treat each bubble individually with a small amount of soft filler. As for the main undercarriage doors these required minor reshaping and a small rectangular projection was cut at the upper edge since this is at an angle when the doors are in open position. . I made reference to good pictures of the ATR-72 that appear in a civil airliners book called ‘Civil Aircraft Today’ by Paul E.Eden.

 The decal sheet was of good quality. This caters for a single British Airways livery, which is colourful. The fuselage has white upper and royal blue lower. I used Humbrol semi gloss paints. The engine nacelles are white while the wings are light grey. One front view in the instructions does show the nacelles grey. De-icing boots for the leading edges are also in decal form and to my surprise these needed more care that the rest of the decal sheet when it came to applying them.

The ATR-72 resin kit was a pleasing model to build and is highly recommended for those who are keen on short haul airliners and this should add a colourful liner to their collection. It is also ideal for those who never tried resin kits before.

Civil Aircraft Today by Paul E.Eden

Carmel J. Attard